I’ve read a ton of stories on how evil Amazon is a threat—to bookstores, to libraries, to bricks-and-mortar retail of every stripe. But just to prove that, like everything else in life, perspective matters, here is a fun story in the Toronto Star about one business that loves Amazon: Canada Post.
It seems that email has killed the letter-writing star, and this venerable government institution has staked their survival on parcel delivery. Their biggest business threat? Competition from people engaging in ‘retail shopping.’ The article cites the triple threat of cheaper courier-based options, drone delivery and—yes, in-store pickup—as potential disrupters of the order-online gravy train.
It’s funny how a little perspective change can transform an issue. A retail store may lament an online powerhouse that takes away potential customers. But here is one business that sees the bricks-and-mortar stores as a threat and prefers for people to order online!
Image credit: Here.
teleread.org 
To that we should add al of those eBay sellers, Netflix, et. al. but even all that hasn’t gotten the USPS as healthy as it once was.
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This isn’t just Amazon helping keep the Canadian post office afloat. Aside from an occasional bill, about the only valuable mail I get delivered by the USPS are packages from a host of retailers in which the post office provides the last-mile delivery for UPS, FedEx and others. Makes sense. The postman (most of mine are women) is coming to my house anyway.
Drones to the home are so stupid, I suspect the only reason Amazon is onto the idea is because Jeff Bezos thinks it clever. What’s a drone going to do for a package to my house much less those in apartments? My porch is too restricted to fly into, much less my delivery box. It’d have to dump that package out on my front lawn and might as well add a flashing light to it so thieves can spot and steal it. Drones to the home are dumb, really dumb. You need a go-anywhere human who can make it as little visible as possible.
Larger drones actually make sense for all the major delivery companies and perhaps the larger retailers. They wouldn’t deliver to homes. They’d deliver packages from a regional shipping center to a landing pad at local post offices for next-day or even next-hour delivery by the USPS.
And that’s neglecting the real need for drones, forgotten by the clueless techno-twits who write breathless prose about Amazon’s ridiculous drones. That’s using drones to transfer blood products, medical supplies, and tissue samples between warehouses, doctor’s offices, clinics, labs, and hospitals. There speed is of critical importance. In the case of hospitals, there’s typically a helipad that could be used for the landing.
–Michael W. Perry, author of My Nights with Leukemia
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