DC Velocity - January 2020

INBOUND

Many shoppers patronized “ pop-up” shops in locations like malls as they picked up holiday gifts last month. Now, one retailer has taken the concept to a whole new level by developing an entire physical store that can literally be picked up and dropped wherever it’s needed.

European food retailer Albert Heijn, a unit of the grocery giant Ahold Delhaize, moved a “small-footprint, portable digital store” from its company headquarters in Zaandam, the Netherlands, to a site at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in September. Transported on a trailer truck, the shop now sits on the Jan Dellaert Square in front of Schiphol Plaza, where it will be open to travelers at the world’s fourth-busiest airport through the end of January.

The cashierless store uses the Santa Clara, California-based technology firm AiFi’s “NanoStore” design to offer shoppers checkout-free shopping. Visitors tap their contact-less debit card, Apple Pay, or Samsung Pay app to open the shop’s door, then just pick up the items they want and walk out. The smart store automatically registers the purchase and arranges for payment.

“The airport is a perfect place for autonomous stores. Travelers are very aware of their time and need food and drinks at a variety of hours,” Steve Gu, CEO and co-founder of AiFi, said in a release. “This speaks to the original design thinking behind NanoStore: to make a plug-and-play modular store so it can be easily placed and moved where people need it the most.” n

A moveable feast?

The launch of electric truck models in recent years has generated a lot of headlines, but the technology has been slow to get off the ground. As a case in point, electric car manufacturer Tesla last spring announced that it was delaying production of its Tesla Semi, originally expected to begin in 2019, to sometime this year.

But that doesn’t mean heavy-duty electric trucks aren’t out on the road these days. Penske Logistics said last month that it has already logged more than 10,000 over-the-road miles using two Freightliner eCascadia-model electric trucks. Penske has been using the vehicles to make daily store deliveries in Southern California for a restaurant chain since late summer.

“For a fleet that runs trucks 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, 10,000 miles may not seem like a milestone, but we believe we are the first fleet in the United States to make daily store deliveries using battery electric heavy-duty tractors for regional distribution,” Penske Logistics President Marc Althen said in a release.

Penske took delivery of its first Freightliner eCascadia in August 2019 and plans to deploy 10 eCascadias in its Southern California operations. The fleet is supported by a network of heavy-duty electric-vehicle charging stations at five Penske Truck Leasing facilities in the region. n

Penske’s electric trucks deliver the goods

Thanks to the e-commerce explosion, some 13 billion packages moved through the U.S. last year, piling up on porches and doorsteps from coast to coast. Most of those boxes were delivered without incident, but an estimated 0.2%—totaling 26 million—were stolen by “porch pirates” who swiped the goods before the rightful owner could claim them.

But what if a trusted neighbor could accept the parcel in the recipient’s absence? That’s the model being pitched by New York-based startup Pickups Technologies, which has created an app that connects online shoppers with a crowd-sourced network of neighbors who can accept packages on their behalf. To use the service, shoppers simply choose the “Ship to Pickups” address option during checkout, and Pickups Technologies takes care of the rest, the firm says.

Now available in the Williamsburg section of New York City’s Brooklyn borough, the platform targets the estimated 90,000 packages that are stolen in New York City every day. But the benefits go beyond simply eliminating the headaches assciated with package theft, according to Pickups Technologies Founder and CEO Gabriel Cepeda. It also gives the growing workforce of freelancers and remote employees an opportunity to monetize their time at home by receiving packages and getting paid for every package held, he says.