In the e-commerce segment the question often pops up is why is the last mile so inefficient? There is a slew of factors that pose perfecting the last mile a big challenge that includes highly customized service, cumbersome routes, and involvement of several stakeholders, just to name a few. Though, a final frontier of logistics, the last mile becomes inefficient due to the enormous amount of money that makes the life of supply chains miserable.Of late, the last-miler delivery has become a serious issue to the forefront of online retailer’s minds and they realized that like Amazon if any e-commerce company has to survive, they need to offer fast and free delivery. So, the retailers started thinking about the ways and means of perfecting this process. They also realized that with the help of technology and the right attitude to honor the commitment is the only way out to survive in this business.
Last MileIn simple terms, last-mile deliveries constitute any movement of items between the distribution center and the point at which the end-user will receive the same. The end user might be in a high rise building or living in a rural area or even a carrier-designated pickup station including Amazon Locker or UPS. There are various stakeholders in the supply chain to which each last-mile delivery is connected.The top segments in the e-commerce business that becomes important sales segment for most carriers can be either business-to-consumer sales (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B). All last-mile deliveries need not be alike. The last-mile delivery and the issues connected to it have always been ubiquitous. The main culprit here is the cost of transporting individualized shipments to distinct, often unreliable locations through constantly changing routes.Apart from uncertain routes and added costs follow lower volumes. The carriers delivering to the last mile have to face innumerable hurdles in transit such as the non-availability of the customer, missing packages, chalk a block traffic and the increased level of expectations for guaranteed, two-day delivery.Remedial MeasurePerfecting the job of the last mile will become all the more pertinent, as the demand for the final-mile deliveries increase, so does the fulfillment timelines becomes cumbersome for both consumer and business deliveries. The last mile connectivity involves a lot of stakeholders in the supply chain. As all the stakeholders in this spectrum including shippers, logistics and technology providers need to collectively address this challenge. Given the burgeoning vehicle proliferation in all urban as well as rural centers, traffic congestion is going to increase like never before. While the online retailers are trying to address these issues, a lot of cooperation need to come from the online shoppers as well. Many a hassle can be avoided if the end-user cooperates.There should be constant interaction between the customer and the e-commerce executive. If a customer gives an exact day and time of delivering the ordered item, it would be a convenience for the shipper. As the saying goes, that the customer is king, when the online retailers delivering the chosen product for free, it is the responsibility of the customers to reciprocate basic things in order to maintain a healthy relationship, before the online retailers collectively decide to take steps that would pinch the end-users.
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