Postmates is working with Instacart, a competitor, to deliver groceries in the Bay Area during peak-demand times. Here are two home delivery companies, who probably have overlapping workforces (many giggers use several marketplaces to keep work flowing) with largely unique customer bases (if standard brand thinking holds and consumers do gravitate to single-brand relationships for convenience and to simplify their decision-making.
Postmates, obviously, has offered delivery-as-a-resolve for merchants and brands since its inception, and some of those brands, such as Walmart, offer their own delivery services. But this marks the first time that Postmates has offered delivery-as-a-service to a business that itself is already a delivery service. – TechCrunch
At some point, apparently this week in the Bay Area where all this gigging started, marketplace platform companies run into the unavailability of human resources when they have consumer demand for those resources. Then, they will start to partner to find local people to do similar services, as Instacart has with Postmates. Now that they began a financial relationship Instacart will likely explore acquisition to improve margins in the geographies where delivery services are in highest demand. The Bay Area is just the first example of the emerging trend in deilvery, but it will spread to other on-demand segments.
Logistics services, mass transport-scale driver-manned or autonomous vehicles, and a variety of home-focused services will discover improved profitability — and deliver their service at lower prices — through mergers & acquisitions. One bet about which I’m confident is that local selling capabilities will be distributed to , for example, as brands seek influential sellers who can sell their communities products and services.
Just imagine the mind-bending antitrust questions that will come up as the personalized relationship with consumers could be monopolized by a platform.
Source: Instacart taps Postmates to help with deliveries in SF during peak demand | TechCrunch