V2 of On-Demand Economy — Are we there yet?

Originally published at www.linkedin.com.

In the not so distant past, people worked for the things that they bought. They saved, purchased what they needed and then held onto that item for a considerable length of time

Today everything is On-Demand with Instant Gratification.

Its 3pm, an executive just flown in from Seattle to attend a few client meetings, he has just finished his first meeting and is attending his second meeting at 4.30pm on the other side of the town, so instead of trying to hail a cab he pulls up his Uber. During the ride, he remembers he hasn’t booked his accommodation for the night, which prompts him to pull up hotel tonight app, where he quickly looks for a place nearby and books for the night. Oh and then he remembers it’s his mum’s birthday today, so he quickly opens up BloomThat and orders flowers, while listening to his favourite Bob Dylan song on Spotify.

Of course towards the end of his 30 min ride, he instantly reviews of his Uber driver. Every task he did during the ride, including the ride itself required instant actions, any delay would not be tolerated and would be regarded as a lapse in quality, consistency, and most of all, value.

As a society we are clearly reaching the threshold where almost every aspect of what we do, across all ages require instant gratification. Today, parents can find nannies on demand, when they are going out to celebrate their promotion — or families can hire caregivers for their elderly parents.

There are a lot of things that can be anticipated, people looking for taxi at a certain time of the day / day of the week, people looking for parking etc.

However there are a lot of other external factors, such as the weather conditions, holiday sales or the latest game scores that cannot be anticipated. These events can change the propensity to which customers transact.

If your team wins vs. when you team loses; can be the deciding factor when it comes to alcohol consumption variation in different cities and then the sales of aspirin the next morning.

That’s why at Offerbook we think; we will be seeing a lot of next generation companies that will create a true on-demand platforms.

On demand technologies, where both users and brands can dynamically adjust their needs, price and reach at the most critical times.

It’s a case of ‘when’; the shift in consumer expectation is already underway, and retailers of all shapes, sizes, and categories have much to gain from the instant gratification economy if they can act quickly and intelligently. Businesses who’d leverage real-time technologies will capitalize on the Instant gratification shift, while making the most of each opportunity as it happens.

We’re starting to see these model surface, with the likes of UBER’s surge pricing, where algorithms control the amount that will be charged to the user based on supply and demand.

Surge pricing maybe the option for now, but in long term we think we need to empower both consumers and retailers by giving them access to the tools and ability to react to these shifts in real time so they can respond appropriately. These powerful tools will provide both consumers and retailers a definite advantage in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace.

Ankit Sehgal is the Founder and CEO of Offerbook.co

Offerbook is platform for creating and discovering amazing local deals. He can be reached at team@Offerbook.co or @sehgal_ankit on twitter.

Image by Lacey from clmus.com