American Express service start-ups are back in the undertow.

Absrtact: August 25, the New York Times published a commentary article by columnist Klerkenmil (Claire Cain Miller) on the surge in express service entrepreneurship. Miller believes that the current courier service start-up companies began to regain the resurgence, the market seems to return to 2000 years

On August 25, The New York Times published a commentary by columnist Clare Kain Miller (Claire Cain Miller) about the business boom in express services. Miller believes that the current courier service start-up companies have begun to regain a resurgence, the market seems to return to the 2000-year scene, but the prospects of these startups are unclear.

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Last year, I was excited to hear about a San Francisco start-up that was able to deliver cheap wines to the home within an hour. The company, known as Rewinery, is a great company. One day, I ordered a bottle of 5 dollars of Malbec wine online, the next day ordered a bottle of 10 Chardonnay wine, rewinery Courier quickly rode the goods to my home, and the charges are not much.

San Francisco has a lot of courier companies, their couriers riding bicycles through the streets, delivering sushi, groceries or clothing and other goods. But Rewinery was the first start-up that made me feel like going back to 2000--at that time, I could order a VCR from the Kozmo network, and I could order a pint of ice cream. Rewinery makes people feel incredibly good.

It really is unbelievable. One day, when I opened the Rewinery application again, I found it closed.

In early 21st century, many on-demand delivery services, such as Kozmo and webvan--, failed completely. They even became an unkind joke. Then, the traditional concept became more determined: online shopping delivery service is not a good business, because it needs to spend a lot of money to create warehouses, manage inventory, and pay the courier staff. The possibility of recovering costs by charging a courier fee is too small, and people are only willing to pay a small fee for the courier service.

However, the situation has changed in recent years. Despite Rewinery's failure, other companies, such as Ebaynow, have converged on ambitions. But some of the same companies, such as Caviar, SpoonRocket and DoorDash, raised a total of about $500 million trillion in funding last year, according to CB Insights, a market research firm. Even Webvan's founder is planning a grocery-courier start-up. Uber is also using 1.4 billion of dollars of money raised to develop cargo courier business. A variety of quirky commodity-courier startups have sprung up, such as delivering washio of old clothes to be cleaned, ice Cream life for ice creams and eaze delivering marijuana. Venture capitalists are confused, wondering if they are back in the 2000-year period and wondering if the courier companies will be successful.

John A. Dayton, a professor at Harvard Business School, is writing a case study paper on Webvan. Professor John likes to compare the distribution business with Shoeshine. "If you rub 1000 pairs of shoes, your profits are substantial," he said. "It's just not forming a scale at the moment. "In the past few years, it has been difficult for Dayton to teach Webvan to students because it has such obvious fatal flaws. Students cannot understand that the Internet boom could have overcome its flaws. But in the past year, he was asked to teach three times Webvan. "Something has changed. "he said.

The biggest change is that companies are relying on software to try to improve the efficiency of day delivery. At the same time, companies are removing the physical supply chain as much as possible, a supply chain that once let their pioneer companies go bankrupt. They cut out warehouses, trucks and allied drivers, becoming an intermediary with the sole purpose of connecting customers and couriers. However, they have not solved one of the most difficult logistical problems, that is, remote delivery of small orders.

The software can solve the problem, say entrepreneurs and investors. The computer algorithm can make the courier to take time to minimize the delivery, while making their maximum number of shipments.

"It's a good idea right now, exactly the same reason it used to be a bad idea: the network effect. "Nabille Kei Yue (Nabeel Hyatt), partner of Spark Capital, said Spark. Spark Capital is a courier company Postmates investors. America's Internet-owning family was less than half in 1999, and 98% of households in the United States today installed the Internet. Also, customers and couriers have smartphones, which is also a good factor. This means that the density of users and potential users is getting bigger and they can get in touch with the courier at any time. This will eventually result in a bigger scale.

In the 90 's, Webvan spent 35 million dollars to build 350,000 square feet of distribution centers. The online grocery store, founded in 2012, Instacart only a small office in San Francisco, and its only 70 employees are engineers and executives. "We don't have any warehouses, nor any trucks. "Instacart's general manager, Adia Shaha Aditya Shah, said.

Of course, the company still needs to pay the courier. "The difficulty is not to get customers, but to send the goods to customers." Rewinery's founder, Paul Lenar Paulo Lerner, said, "If we charge a lot of delivery fees, we lose our appeal." If we charge a small delivery fee, we will lose money. Paul has now left San Francisco for Brazil.

Instacart's current delivery fee is as low as $3.99 trillion, making corporate earnings seem unlikely, even with the smartest computer algorithms. But Shah said: "We have raised a lot of money, so this is not a concern." Growth is the most important factor. ”

The idea of growth supremacy is still popular in Silicon Valley. Express start-ups are trying to bridge the digital and physical worlds, when human costs become expensive. "It's a difficult thing. "It's really hard work," said Paul.

Josh Lerner, head of business management at Harvard Business School, Josh the same skepticism. "Some people pay for it, but it's definitely against the rules of Economics." "he said.

The problem now boils down to how many people are willing to pay for laziness. For economists, laziness is not necessarily a bad thing. John Maynard Keynes, Maynard Keynes, predicted a world in which technology had progressed so far that all chores did not require people to do it in person. But even if this prophecy is true, it is not necessarily a good thing: delivery on demand can create a dual economy--the rich pay for others, and others provide services. That is to say, unless Amazon succeeds in handing the tedious work to the machine, there are still a lot of people who are offering express services instead of buying express services.

Or, we should listen to Fred Wilson, union founder Frede Wilson of Union Square Ventures. Fred lost a lot of money because of his investment kozmo. "I hope we know the answers to these questions, but we don't know. "That's why we're out of the market," he told me. "But he was registered as a customer on a courier service website. (Tan S)