Let’s count the ways that Amazon can get your order into your hands:

  1. Shipping to your door, often requiring you to be home to receive the package, with the help of
    a. The U.S Postal Service.
    b. FedEx.
    c. UPS.
    d. Its own fleet of drivers.
  2. Shipping to your garage, regardless of whether you’re home, using the Key by Amazon option.
  3. Delivery to lockers located at various locations, such as apartment buildings, in your local area.
  4. Delivery to a local Whole Foods store, which is the grocery store chain it owns.
  5. Delivery to a local Kohl’s or Best Buy, in a relatively new arrangement with these independent retailers.

And now we can add a new option: Delivery to the local Rite Aid drug store. Similar to the Kohl’s and Best Buy agreements, the new collaboration leaves the two retailers separately owned but enables them to work together to appeal to and better serve customers.
The packages will be held at Rite Aid for up to two weeks, so shoppers can pop in to the local drug store whenever it is convenient for them to grab their items, without having to worry about waiting at home to receive them or granting Amazon permission to access their garages to leave the packages. As this move indicates, Amazon continues to seek diverse options to cover the last-mile delivery challenge, both conveniently for customers and efficiently for itself.
For Rite Aid, which has been operating at a loss in recent quarters, the arrangement promises an increase in foot traffic, as people come in to pick up their Amazon purchases, and thus the potential for an increase in sales as well. The stores will be required to devote some floor space to the Amazon-branded pick-up counters, as well as ensure that sufficient staff is on hand to give customers their packages when they arrive. The agreement explicitly does not allow for returns of Amazon products to the stores.
The promise of these benefits is so strong—and the successful example of the Kohl’s partnership has been so compelling—that Rite Aid has announced it will be adding the counters to all its stores within the year. Rather than any pilot or testing period, it is jumping right into the deep end of Amazon provision services.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of in-store pickup from Rite Aid’s perspective? From Amazon’s perspective? From consumers’ perspective?

Source: Sebastian Herrera, The Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2019. See also Emma Cosgrove, “Amazon Adds Counter Parcel Pick Up in 100 Rite Aid Stores,” Retail Dive, June 27, 2019