Our worlds are getting smaller. Literally they are getting geographically smaller.
It was not that long ago that most of us had to spend our “free time” on weekends as errand time. But errand time is now largely a thing of the past! Thanks to “e-commerce” and the great delivery infrastructure in the U.S., we no longer need to leave our house to buy groceries, light bulbs, clothes or dinner. Even the days of schlepping across town to buy a mattress or couch are largely ending.
It seems almost every week we discover something new we don’t need to leave the house for, making it EXTRA painful when you actually have to spend a few hours running an errand.
With over 70 million Amazon Prime members — this is not a niche trend.
Technology is making our world smaller by eliminating the need to leave our zip code for things that can easily get delivered.
- Hauling your pet to a kennel can be a painful process (literally & figuratively!). Now you can find someone to care for them within a few blocks of where you live, like one of DogVacay’s 40,000 pet sitters.
- No reason to go to the airport Hertz when you can rent a car from someone down the street through Turo.
- Your neighborhood may not have a single hotel, but Airbnb has fixed that problem with it’s 3 million available listings across the globe.
- And blind dates are awkward enough. Tinder’s 50 million monthly active users can meet at their neighborhood coffee shop without having to navigate unfamiliar logistics.
People are now used to seeing proximity in everything they search for. All of these services are fundamentally changing consumer behavior and training users that they don’t need to compromise choices while gaining the convenience of staying in their zip code. We are going to see every major consumer service start to offer this option.
For example:
- Job listings: We know commute time has a huge impact on our happiness. Why can’t I search for where I want to work by proximity?
- News: We still can’t find articles based on location (e.g., proximity to my house). Companies like Bay Area-based, Hoodline, are working on this.
- Classifieds: Craigslist hasn’t innovated or adapted in years. Today’s proximity-based marketplaces, like OfferUp and Letgo, are significantly reducing friction around transactions.
- Food: Companies like Josephine are enabling people to get home-cooked meals from their neighbors.
- Rentals: We’re going to see the success of peer-to-peer rental marketplaces in a number of verticals. Clothing will likely be the first to get mainstream adoption, like Curtsy.
Now that U.S. smartphone penetration is over 80%, and location sharing no longer crushes battery life, we can expect entirely new consumer services to work. Imagine a world where you can press a button and every service / product / party comes to you….it’s coming!
- Spontaneous socializing: Finding friends on a whim to grab lunch or go for a run can now work with services like Down To Lunch.
- On the fly discounts: Restaurants and small businesses should be able to sell excess inventory on-demand and in real-time.
- Group-purchasing and flash mobs are other areas I see being enabled in powerful new ways.
Most importantly, many of these new services will bring us together in the real world in new and exciting ways. And by creating these offline connections they will deepen our relationships with each other and with our communities.
If you are working in this area, drop me a note.
-Saar Gur
