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general store in a local community to little bit unprecedented,” Williams says. whoever that is, the way that we start to
a period in the 60s or 70s when the “There are people out there that have good ready-for-pick-up-at-store or
department store was king. Then, in the say, ‘The brick-and-mortar store is going site-to-store services. All of that is lead-
80s, when mass retailers and big box to die,’ and I couldn’t disagree with ing me to say that shipments are going
retailers started to roll out, you started that more. I do think that the role of to continue to be decreasing in size.”
to see a consolidation in the industry.” the brick and mortar store changes over So while the headlines about
Now, the pull of e-commerce and time. And it becomes more integrated Amazon’s delivery service sinking other
the increased power of the consumer with a retailer’s digital interface with carriers like FedEx and UPS seem far-
deconsolidates the retail systems of the the customer,” Williams explains. fetched, the impact of internet retailers
past. “I think about subscription services responding to the demands for faster
“In some ways, the revolution feels a from Walmart.com or Amazon.com or and smaller deliveries is real.
TM How will the networks have to split
an order to still get efficiencies?
Williams predicts that the networks
are going to shift in some way, but he
is hesitant to say how. “I don’t know
exactly how. I think that to maintain
efficiency, those retailers and transpor-
tation companies have to collaborate
and actually have to share data.”
TM
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40 arkansas trucking rePort | issue 1 2016