Sears, Roebuck vs Amazon Drones......

Logistics is the new industrial revolution.

If I were still a young man in the mining industry I would get up tomorrow morning and set my cap for moving into the process of delivering goods and services from the giant mass of providers to the giant mass of goods and services consumers in the quickest time.

We are experiencing a giant paradigm shift in the way goods and services are ordered and provided.

The first true paradigm shift in getting goods and services to market came from Julius Rosenwald, who was the true visionary behind the giant Sears, Roebuck Company in Chicago. Rosenwald saw an emerging market for goods and services in the western areas of the United States areas where the railroads were expanding and set about creating a logistics solution for this need.

First, Rosewald invented the concept of the printed catalog containing images and descriptions of those products and services meant to lure potential users into a sales contract with Sears. Then, he sent those printed catalogs, by rail or mail, to anyone and everyone on the rail line who requested it. And, this worked.

Buyers pondered the giant Sears catalog by kerosene lamp in those quiet times at night away from the hard chores of farm survival in the west, and ordered their desires by mail the following day.

Today, we are moving toward another paradigm shift in marketing where the physical store experience of going there, browsing and touching our potential purchases before purchasing is becoming less interesting. The internet has become the new Sears catalog where we browse, imagine ourselves using those products and finally committing to a purchase. No need for a printed catalog when that catalog is online.

Our purchases today are brought to our doorstep not by a railroad train but by a delivery van which is connected to realtime to a cloud-based scheduling and logistics app and is using maps technology and traffic reporting to assess the most efficient way to get your order to you.

We now talk of order delivery in terms of aerial drones and self-driving vehicles but the value proposition here is immediacy. How quickly can you deliver my purchase request? Can I have my order this morning, or this afternoon?

Those who abandon job descriptions in waning industries in favor of anything to do with logistics and order fulfillment will be purchasing a ticket on the train which delivered Julius Rosenwald's Sears catalogs idea so successfully to the American public.

© 2017, Jefferson Martin