Online deliveries create new demands

The ‘collaborate to compete’ philosophy is clearly gaining ground among logistics operators with the recent Barloworld Logistics/LBH Africa partnership making headlines last week. (FTW April 3, 2015). A strong proponent of the concept in the airfreight sector is Garry Marshall, MD of express/courier specialists, Bidair Cargo. “I’m very much in favour of it,” he told FTW. Indeed, he added, in Bidair’s latest in-house magazine there’s a discussion of the latest thing in the express industry – on-line deliveries. “It brings enormous problems,” Marshall said, ‘especially when delivery is to a party far out in a rural region. There are no economies of scale and it’s horrendously expensive. But it’s unfortunately absolutely necessary.” Then there are issues of the recipients giving home addresses for delivery, but not being home during the day. And delivery drivers being unable to get through the front gate in SA’s securityconscious environment. “It’s very expensive, but the on-line retailers want it for nothing, causing an enormous trauma within the express industry,” Marshall said. But a significant part of the answer is for companies to co-operate. “It makes sense from an economies-of-scale point of view,” he added. He also pointed out that they would have to operate within the competition laws, because the Competition Commission (CC) had sharp eyes on any form of co-operation partnership. “But, if a company is not represented in a particular region, why should they go to the expense of setting up premises there when they could co-operate with a company that has a good footprint in that area?” Marshall said. INSERT & CAPTION On-line retailers want it for nothing, hence causing an enormous trauma within the express industry. – Garry Marshall