This week saw a wide range of media reports stating that Amazon, thanks to its recent state tax deals, may offer shoppers same-day delivery and that this, as one Slate headline said, "will destroy local retail." Just a few problems: First, the tax deals are years in the making and have little to do with this. Second, no, Amazon offering same-day delivery won't mean the end for almost any retailers. How do we know? That's the third point: Amazon has already been delivering products same day—for more than three years.
There are a lot of interesting twists involved in this same-day delivery strategy—including some unusual ways one Amazon insider said the master site could deploy it—but there's a bizarre trend here.
