What a dark store commits before the agent orders

Before a customer taps anything, a dark store has already committed. It has agreed supplier targets to earn its rebates, bought stock for a funded promotion, taken space for a range, rostered pickers for the evening peak and set the dates it pays suppliers. Together those decisions commit cash and capacity to an expected pattern of demand.

Today the store shapes that demand through its range, prices, promotions and placement. Hand the choice of products and retailer to a household's assistant, and part of that influence moves outside the store.

That makes the assistant a counterparty. The store brings purchasing power, local availability and fulfilment. The assistant routes orders. Whether it also brings new customers, or useful notice of demand, decides what the relationship is worth to the store.

Supplier terms are the first place we look, because each one pays for something different. Purchase discounts and free units set what it costs to serve the basket. A target rebate rewards qualifying volume, and a missed target costs the rebate. A funded promotion changes the offer itself, and an assistant can still compare it. Visibility fees sell exposure, and an outside assistant decides what it shows.

We expect visibility fees to come under pressure first and target rebates next, because an assistant that routes volume elsewhere can move a store below its targets without anyone in the store deciding it.

An outside assistant can make a dark store easier to buy from and easier to replace. The operator needs buying terms, reliable availability and fulfilment economics that give it a reason to be chosen beyond simply being connected.

• A Merchant running dark stores should ask which supplier terms depend on volume it steers today through range, price and placement, and what each is worth when an assistant routes that volume.
• A Tenant selling through a platform's dark stores should ask who earns the visibility fees when the shopper never sees a shelf.
• A Carrier should ask whether orders placed by assistants arrive with enough notice to plan the picking and the riders.
• A Sovereign should ask whether to open its own gateway to outside agents on its own terms, as Walmart has begun to, before the assistants set them.