Development of Dark Stores as a Competitive Form of Delivery of Goods

The aim of the scientific article is to study the transition of retail entities from the store format to the e-commerce format using the competitive advantages of dark stores. The subject of the research is competitive advantages when using high-tech and flexible forms of supply chains and in the delivery of goods. The relevance of the scientific article is due to the fact that the pace of development of online trade in 2018-2020 testifies to the growth of the largest companies in the e-commerce sector annually. This growth is due to high-tech trend trends that have been actively developing in recent years. They are structurally formed into a single system, the elements of which are: the use of Big data, the digital transformation of trade business processes, the integration of global marketing technologies, the use of smart forecasting and analysis of consumer behavior, personalization, orientation towards virtual content. This system is inherently aimed at the globalized development of trade relations. The authors investigate the essence of the concept of “dark store”, analyze the competitiveness of this phenomenon in e-commerce in modern conditions. Dark stores promote the development of a new generation of commerce, with competitive advantages, they do not interfere with existing production and distribution processes, but rather complement them. Currently, all large trade organizations of the food and non-food sectors are engaged in electronic commerce. First of all, online commerce is organized through online stores and marketplaces, but there are still many other electronic means of making a transaction - this is a page on a social network or a chatbot of a messenger, dark stores that require additional research. It is appropriate to characterize such marketplaces as aggregator sites playing the role of specialized structural intermediaries with a stable base engaged in the sale and distribution of the products of commercial agents. E-commerce in the dark store format thus contributes to the high-quality and competitive development of global economic ties.