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Are 3PLs Next Demand Driver for Last-Mile Delivery Sites?

LOS ANGELES—Amazon is considerably ahead of all other retailers in terms of developing its own delivery network, but third-party logistics companies are the next significant occupiers of this space, C&W's Ben Conwell tells GlobeSt.com in advance of I.CON: Trends and Forecasts.

By Carrie Rossenfeld | naiop | Updated on May 25, 2017
Conwell: “We’d be wrong to assume just because Amazon is doing something, the rest of the industry is going to do the same.”

LOS ANGELES—Amazon is well ahead of all other retailers – online and offline – in developing its own dedicated delivery infrastructure, and as the rest of the retailer community seeks competitive solutions, third-party logistics companies will continue to grow as occupiers of local, last-mile delivery sites, Ben Conwell tells GlobeSt.com. Conwell is senior managing director and Americas practice leader of Cushman & Wakefield’s e-commerce and electronic fulfillment specialty practice group. Amazon continues to build out its end-to-end delivery infrastructure, which is disrupting industrial real estate activity within cities and neighborhoods as existing facilities are repurposed or redeveloped to support one- to two-hour deliveries to customers in the market.

We spoke with Conwell about the implications for the industrial sector, which he’ll discuss June 9 at NAIOP’s I.CON: Trends and Forecasts conference here.

GlobeSt.com: What does Amazon’s push to create more local delivery sites mean for the industrial sector?

Conwell: Amazon created e-commerce as we know it today, and by virtue of its significant head start against the rest of retail and its tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment, it will remain the dominant player. The rest of the industry continues to invest heavily – sometimes wisely, sometimes not – in developing competing offerings as it attempts to play catch-up. Some of what Amazon has done can be, and has been, emulated.  But the unique scale and market position Amazon has built cannot be replicated.

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