E-Commerce

By Lisa Nisenson, Vice President, New Mobility and Connected Communities at Wantman Group, Inc. (WGI). July 24, 2019

Florida is known for moving a lot of freight.  From international ports in Jacksonville and Miami, to high capacity roadways and rail, Florida  gets the goods where they need to go.

Historically a product’s journey, whether it’s a tomato or a truck, found its way to a customer from a visit to a store or showroom. The customer has always been the “last mile” of delivery.

That journey is changing (even for tomatoes) as technology races to meet consumer demand for less-than-two-hour, free delivery. This blog looks at a future where today’s shopper, surfing through store aisles with 20 items in a cart, is replaced by a shopper who can order almost anything on the fly.

A quick look at how Amazon works is instructive, both in scale and in its evolution of services.

Of course, the e-commerce world is not just Amazon. The logistics and e-commerce consulting firm Semantics3 estimates close to 6 million entities host e-commerce sites globally. The delivery economy comes closer to home with local courier network services like GrubHub and TaskRabbit that deliver food, groceries and parcels. It’s also worth noting around 30% of goods bought online are returned, so it’s no wonder our roads and curbsides feel even more congested.

While our deliveries will continue to arrive by truck, van and bicycle, the market firm Capgemini is already forecasting how new technologies will shape not only deliveries, but warehouse, store and urban design.  Three new autonomous technologies, robots, air drones and deliverybots, will significantly lower costs. Some companies are combining technologies so an autonomous truck filled with goods will park, with air and ground drones completing the last leg within a neighborhood or subdivision.

With these changes in ordering and deliveries, architects are responding as well.  Retailers are having to reconfigure site design to limit conflicts among pedestrians entering the store, inbound freight, and the rising number of BOPIS customers (buy online, pick up in store). A new kind of retail outlet, the dark store, mimics the traditional store, but only serves employees fulfilling online orders – no customers allowed.  Finally, the balcony of the future is not only an outdoor oasis, but also the landing pad for your orders, easing a big headache for apartment managers dealing with a growing onslaught of packages.

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Of course, many of these drone technologies are easy to understand when there are one or two traveling overhead or on the sidewalk in front of us. But what happens at scale and how does this impact how we design, build and reallocate space in cities and suburbs alike?  Here are two ways to frame this complex future.

Multi-Dimensional Infrastructure: In Florida, we mainly think of transportation infrastructure as roads, streets and highways. The arrival of shared, electric scooters and Transportation Network Companies (e.g. Uber and Lyft) quickly highlighted the importance of curbs and sidewalks.  New technologies like deliverybots and autonomous delivery shuttles will also be clamoring for these spaces as well.  Air drones, by necessity, require another systems layer, this time in the sky for flight paths.

Smart infrastructure is not just about vehicles, but also the telecommunications networks needed to support an even larger system of 5G and wireless small cell systems.  Small cells are needed to let a multitude of things talk to each other – hence the reference to the internet of things or IoT. However, all these enhancements need space and are in competition with sidewalk cafes, signs, trees, benches and other elements we associate with great downtowns and urban spaces.

This raises important points for Florida businesses and cities. Are there ways to redesign streets, sidewalks and buildings in ways that support great placemaking and robust digital coverage?

The Commercial Corridor 3.0: Aging commercial corridors are present in almost every Florida community and present both challenges and opportunities. The functional challenge is that corridors try to serve as both higher speed throughput and slower retail traffic at the same time. Current designs serve neither effectively.

This is where technology, and new design, can help commercial corridors become the next great opportunity for redevelopment.

First, there will continue to be shoppers, but they will seek out personalized experiences that e-tailers cannot match. Smart stores will use retail space to greet customers picking up an online order with personalized experience such as a café or a curated collection of goods. We need adaptive plans and zoning codes as the lines among warehouses, stores and event spaces merge.

Second, the corridor redevelopment approach requires creation of new mobility hubs that assemble the growing number of transportation options.  Hubs can also host needed housing options, convenience retail, child care, and open spaces. Transportation technology offers a new generation of development catalysts.

Looking forward, autonomous transit such as shuttles and bus rapid transit bring high quality transit service to more people and solve our corridors’ identity crisis. Higher speed transit and commuters can use middle lanes while lower speed circulators, cars and bicyclists can comfortably travel in curbside lanes.

These are just two examples of the changes underway with technology.  Mobilty is no longer a conversation focused on commuters and roads. As deliveries grow, we need to monitor the impacts of e-commerce and deliveries as part of a larger mobility system, one that contributes to community goals of sustainability and prosperity.  And as the technology behind filling and shipping orders continues to rapidly evolve, so too must the infrastructure needed to support a product’s journey from a back warehouse to the front door.