Amazon’s announcement last month that it had added 12 new cargo aircraft to its fleet, with the first already delivering cargo and the rest to be delivered next year, reveals the online giant’s clear intent to add further muscle to its logistics arm.
For Amazon, logistics is becoming a game-changer on which logistics providers are keeping a close eye.
In the local context, logistics too has been identified as a game changer which has elevated Takealot.com to become the largest online shopping platform.
In an opinion piece published in MyBroadband today, author Rudolph Muller says it has over 2 000 employees with sales of around R1 billion per month.
Its dominance, he says, is no coincidence. “Since its launch in June 2011, it focused on the most important aspect of any online business – logistics.”
Muller points out that its acquisition of Mr Delivery in 2014 gave the business ownership its own logistics network through the Takealot Delivery Team division – formerly Mr D Courier.
Takealot has, since the acquisition, scaled up its delivery capability, he says, describing it as the Amazon of South Africa which has crushed competitors like Makro.
And logistics, he says, is at the heart of it.
