Cowen Expects Other Retailers to Try to Follow Amazon's 1-Day Shipping Example

Amazon’s Prime one-day delivery perk for Prime subscribers (see 1904260026) could lift conversions and reduce cart abandonment to help drive accelerating unit growth this year, wrote Cowen & Co.’s John Blackledge to investors Friday. He called one-day delivery a “significant move,” noting many competitors copied Amazon’s previous two-day shipping perk for members, and Amazon “wants to stay ahead of these peers." Other retailers are likely to try to mimic one-day shipping “but will lose money and time trying to achieve it," he said. The move to one day is the evolution of many years of fulfillment investments, including warehouse robotics upgrades that would be difficult for competitors to replicate short-term, he said. Cowen found nearly 30 percent of respondents who abandoned an online cart after adding a product did so because they were concerned it wouldn't arrive on time, second only to price, he said.