How Amazon Can Revolutionize The Supply Chain
Amazon has a chance to further revolutionize the supply chain industry, and it relates to how Prime works for consumers.
In case you hadn't heard, there is a war raging inside and outside Amazon about non-FBA-based Prime sources of inventory. (This is Seller-Fulfilled Prime)
There is a very large opportunity for Amazon to fix this program, not eliminate it. In order to do that, it needs to set up a program no less ambitious than the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) in the payment industry.
Call it the Supply Chain Industry Customer Service Standard (SCI-CSS).
It's the facilities, carriers, cross-dock, and other actors that need to be certified. Labor standards, pick times, turnaround times, customer feedback scores on fulfillment, and inventory-related metrics. A whole industry of certifications would arise out of this as well, and service providers for it - similar to what they have done with AWS.
All made in Amazon's image.
Right now it's the seller who is the one that is certified. That doesn't make sense. It's not like FBA is different based on who the seller is, how much fraud they get, etc. This would be a massive investment, but I think the payoff is pretty clear, and it would ripple across the entire industry.
