How predictive shopping can remorph supply chain frontiers ..

Most of us by now are aware of the most common e-commerce business model of shopping-then-shipping. Once the customers makes the choice of items, the e-commerce portal would initiate operations to get the ordered items to reach the customer by accessing different databases.

With advances in Artificial Intelligence(AI) which we are advancedly witnessing in our daily lives, a day will come soon when AI would be able to predict with more than 50% probability items which we would like to purchase or are looking to purchase and the e-commerce portal would ship the items to us in advance of our placing orders. On receiving the items, the customer would favourably look up the items and select the items which he wanted to buy but never had the time or inclination to purchase. The business model now changes to shipping-then-shopping.

This idea was discussed by Prof. Ajay Agarwal and team from the Rotman School of Management, Toronto, Canada in the Oct issue of HBR. They looked at the benefits it can bring to an organisation in terms of the change in strategy it entails. But from a supply chain professional's view point, it makes more of business sense to catch the customer earlier before he goes to competitors and their products. This brings in better profitability and in the long run dedicated customer base and better customer retention.

Knowing your customers' likes and dislikes before-hand and shipping the required items to him with higher probability of acceptance, reaching anywhere near to 90% acceptability and a proportionally high profitability,(as sales are realised faster, reliably, with less costs and with less returns) would in fact be the utopia a supply chain professional would be dreaming in his organisation.

George..

Ref : 1. How AI will change strategy, a thought experiment, Ajay Agarwal et al, HBR, Oct, 2017.

I asked chatGPT to edit this text to make it superior, this is what it did..

As technology continues to advance, e-commerce businesses are beginning to explore new ways to improve their operations and customer experience. One such model, known as "shipping-then-shopping," utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to predict customers' purchasing habits and ship items to them in advance of their placing an order.

This model, discussed by Professor Ajay Agarwal and his team from the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, Canada, in the October issue of the Harvard Business Review, has the potential to bring significant benefits to organizations. From a supply chain professional's perspective, this model allows for catching customers earlier before they turn to competitors, resulting in better profitability and a dedicated customer base.

By using AI to predict customers' likes and dislikes, and shipping items to them with a high probability of acceptance, businesses can reach an acceptability rate of nearly 90% and achieve higher profitability. This is due to faster sales, reliable delivery, lower costs, and fewer returns. In short, this model could be a supply chain professional's utopia in their organization.