When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
THE ECONOMIC TIMES

A Door-To-Door Global Tour Of Delivery In COVID-19 Times

UberEats and Glovo workers wait for McDonald's meals to deliver to their costumers.
UberEats and Glovo workers wait for McDonald's meals to deliver to their costumers.

As the novel coronavirus races its way around the world, we are also witnessing a rush of changes in the delivery industry. No longer just an option, delivery has all but become a necessity during the pandemic, and the sector as a whole has proven itself extremely adaptive. From creative innovations to corporations venturing into new milieus, here is a global tour of how delivery is changing:

Organic growth: While countless businesses great and small are suffering in the pandemic period, others seem naturally suited for these turbulent times:

  • Naturalia, the organic branch of the French food retailer Monoprix, saw its turnover increase by 40% during France"s two-and-a-half-month lockdown phase, the daily Les Échos reports. Naturalia's success is part of a larger trend, according to Daniel Ducrocq, an executive with the data and measurement firm Nielsen. "Drive-up and home delivery have reached historically high levels," he says. There's been a particular increase in the use of such services by older clients, Ducrocq noted. "The challenge for the coming months will be for distributors to keep this newly acquired clientele."

  • In the UK, Amazon Fresh is expanding its offer by proposing free delivery for Amazon Prime members. The company, having experienced booming food sales during the lockdown, wants to cover more areas in the country, according to theGuardian.

  • There's evidence that this fresh approach to procuring fresh food is catching on in Senegal as well. In Dakar, a company called Club Kossam has added fruit and vegetables to its offer (it already delivered dairy products) and doubled its monthly sales as a result. The firm now delivers to nearly 1,300 homes in the Senegalese capital every week, Siècle Digitalreports.

  • The big question, though — and not just in Senegal — is whether the shift in favor of online shopping will last beyond the pandemic. Rapidos, another Senegalese home delivery company that has seen earnings increase of late, isn't convinced. But they're not complaining either. The company's managers, as reported by FranceInfo, attribute the success of online commerce to the coronavirus crisis but also to purchases linked to the month of Ramadan.

Unexpected opportunities: The pandemic didn't just add to the number of people seeking home deliveries, it also increased the number of businesses willing to send their products out, particularly among restaurants.

  • In the UK, some high-end restaurants were loathe to offer takeaway — until the lockdown period, that is. Desperate times, in other words, call for desperate measures. And for takeaway services like Just Eat, that's meant extra revenue. The company's earnings were up 33% in April and May compared to the same period last year, the business publication Investment Trust Insider reports.

Delivery workers on the road in Lima, Peru. — Photo: El Comercio/GDA/ZUMA Wire

Pushing the envelope: In these unprecedented times, some companies are taking things to a whole new level. Whether for the sake of speed or safety, innovation has been the name of the game.

  • Leave it to Japanto really ramp things up on the tech end. With the need for social distancing and contactless delivery options, some Japanese firms are experimenting with delivery robots.

  • Japan Today reports that one autonomous delivery robot called DeliRo will be rolling out onto the streets of Tokyo to deliver Japanese soba noodle dishes directly to nearby customers. "We want to explore what kinds of autonomous delivery services are possible and what the DeliRo can offer at a time when new lifestyles are called for amid the coronavirus outbreak," says a spokesperson for the robot firm ZMP Inc.

  • The Japanese Government is fully on board with increasing autonomous delivery service in hopes that it will alleviate what has been an acute shortage in labor since the start of the pandemic. It may be easier said than done, however, as there are still some legal and logistical issues to iron out with regards to the slow-moving, self-driving machines.

  • Speed is also of the essence in Bengaluru, India, where the Walmart-owned retailer Flipkart has launched a hyperlocal, 90-minute delivery service called Flipkart Quick, Economic Times reports. "With this launch, the company is making its first foray into fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as meats and milk products," the publication explains. "And to do so, Flipkart is working in partnership with Ninjacart, a company specialized in business-to-business fresh produce provisions."

  • The partnership is a prime example of how the coronavirus pandemic has led to faster convergence between online and offline commerce, with traditional businesses now increasingly collaborating with online channels as a long-term strategy to generate demand.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Future

The Smartwatch May Be The True Killer Device — Good Or Bad?

Connected watches don't just tell the time, they give meaning to life.

Photo of a person wearing a smart watch

Person wearing a smart watch

Sabine Delanglade

PARIS — By calculating the equivalent in muscle mass of the energy that powers gadgets used by humans, engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici, a Mines ParisTech professor and president of the Shift Project, concluded that a typical French person lives as if they had 600 extra workers at their disposal.

People's wrists are adorned with the equivalent power of a supercomputer — all thanks (or not) to Apple, which made the smartwatch a worldwide phenomenon when it launched the Apple Watch in 2014, just as it did with the smartphone with the 2007 launch of the iPhone.

Similar watches existed before 2014, but it was Apple that drove their dazzling success. Traditional watchmakers, who, no matter what they say, didn't really believe in them at first, are now on board. They used to talk about complications and phases of the moon, but now they're talking about operating systems.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest