The End-State of Commerce

Nearly thirty years ago, the emergence of mainstream e-commerce, led by companies such as Amazon and eBay, revolutionized the way people buy and sell goods. Online ordering brought a newfound convenience to consumers, enabling the purchase of items without leaving the home. This required a complex supply chain to fulfill those online orders and deliver the goods, from a manufacturer to logistics providers, through several warehouses, and finally to the front door.

Since those early days of e-commerce, we have seen a steady progression towards faster deliveries and streamlined supply chains, driven by companies like Amazon, Instacart, DoorDash and our own Deliverr. But, as delivery times have decreased from weeks to days to hours, it begs the question: what does the end-state of e-commerce delivery look like? How fast can I get what I want?

At Activant, we believe that the next generation of commerce will be built upon near instantaneous deliveries done in 15 minutes or less. That is why we are investing in JOKR, to help build the future of retail.

Starting with Grocery

The global grocery market is a mostly offline $8+ trillion industry with e-grocery penetration in the low single digit percentages. Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen a strong increase in the number of consumers who have purchased groceries online; we expect the market to continue moving in that direction.

However, our existing retail infrastructure is not designed for high quality on-demand grocery delivery. Traditional grocery stores carry far more SKUs and require far more real estate than is necessary for delivery.More importantly, they lack the ability to pick, pack, and deliver groceries on their own.

As a result, online grocery options today rely on third party vendors to handle the logistics that traditional grocers cannot do themselves. But the third-party model is at best a patchwork solution for an underlying infrastructure problem. Among many other issues, third party e-grocery vendors suffer from a lack of insight into the inventory on the shelves. Consumer shopping in the physical store becomes “interference”, contributing to stockouts, product swaps, and an overall mediocre user experience.

The only structurally viable model for high quality on-demand grocery delivery is to own the full stack, from the inventory to the distribution centers and the local dark hubs. Vertical integration allows the vendor to control and optimize every aspect of the service, from locations and hubs layouts, to procurement, pricing, and inventory management.

The End-State of Commerce

We believe that JOKR represents this end-state of commerce. They are rebuilding the grocery and retail industry from the ground up for today’s consumers and redefining how we buy the things we need – instant and personalized, without trading off user experience or affordability. This creates a superior customer experience and customers love it.

With 100 delivery hubs across the U.S., Latin America and Europe today, JOKR has already proven itself to be one of the fastest growing next generation instant delivery platforms. They are building global-scale infrastructure and sustainable supply chains while supporting products from local partners and communities.

Ralf Wenzel and his co-founders bring over a decade of experience scaling high growth global businesses, and they have assembled a world class management team at JOKR.

Here at Activant, we are thrilled to be partnering with Ralf and the entire JOKR team as they reinvent retail, in 15 minutes or less.