Consumer behavior has changed throughout the past years. With the growth of eCommerce, convenience became an essential part of your customer’s journey, and delivering your products to your customer’s doorstep with a unique customer experience is critical now. So, what is last-mile delivery? What are the benefits and challenges of finding a proper last-mile delivery partner? And how is Packaly the right partner for you?

What is last-mile delivery?

Last-mile delivery refers to the journey of the goods sold and delivered, starting from the shop or warehouse, where the parcel is picked up, to the doorstep of the customer’s address. The growing demand for fully integrated omnichannel retailing is one of the main driving factors for innovation in last-mile delivery. So when is last-mile delivery relevant?

Getting a parcel across the street to a customer is considered “last-mile” in the parcel’s journey. From a retail perspective, the multi-channel integrated shopping experience is crucial for most retailers’ success. An eCommerce business is expected to provide a proper customer journey from the homepage to the checkout and delivery. Therefore, improving last-mile delivery is a must for any successful retail business with an online presence. So, what are the benefits of an appropriate last-mile solution for your company?

Benefits of Last-Mile Delivery

Last-mile delivery has many benefits and advantages for you and your company. Before diving into how Packaly stands out and benefits your business, let’s look at some of the general advantages of having an appropriate last-mile delivery solution for your business.

1. Boosts Customer Experience

Last-mile delivery gives your customers the convenience they’re looking for by delivering the parcel to their delivery destination in the fastest way possible. Speed and other features such as track and trace, express or scheduled delivery, or parcel verification could significantly boost your customer experience and improve customer loyalty.

2. Boosts Scalability

By offering multiple last-mile delivery options and features such as real-time track and trace, sustainable shipping, and express delivery on your website, you allow your business to reach new customers. You could also target different customer segments by giving them the option to shop online and have the parcels sustainably delivered to their chosen delivery address. 

Therefore, you will be able to scale up your business faster with a growing customer base leading to a higher growth rate and more successful business.

3. Boosts Profitability

New customers will drive your sales higher and lead to exponential growth, thanks to the flexibility and scalability of the multitude of last-mile delivery options you offer. By finding the proper last-mile delivery provider, you could save costs such as hidden delivery costs, unexpected nuances, and expensive technology.

 You could also use the different shipping options for customer acquisition, and upscaling. After all, you will have more time to focus on your business plan and growth rather than logistical difficulties.

4. Streamlined Delivery Process

An efficient Last-mile delivery journey enables you to streamline your delivery process. Rather than the outdated method of going through multiple channels for each parcel, most last-mile delivery companies offer a unified front-end tool or interface for you to use in a repetitive and automated process that will cut time when using a multitude of shipping options, save costs, and most importantly, improve your customer’s experience.

This does not mean you should use only one last-mile delivery provider but instead try choosing a multitude of delivery services that provide you with a streamlined delivery process and fits your business needs.

These are but a few of the benefits that an effective last-mile delivery could offer you. As technology advances, we are looking at new benefits and trends that drive the world of eCommerce to dominate the commerce industry, where an excellent last-mile delivery experience is crucial.

Challenges of Finding a Last-Mile Delivery Partners

No new advancement comes without challenges. Like the advantages, there are some general challenges that you need to address when looking for your last-mile delivery partner. Let’s look at the most prominent ones.

1. Efficiency

With eCommerce competition growing with the market, your last-mile delivery partner is often the only physical interaction your customer has throughout their journey. The last-mile delivery provider also controls most of the aspects related to the delivery experience. Therefore, having an efficient last-mile delivery partner is vital for your business’s success.

The efficiency of a last-mile delivery provider could be measured by their speed of delivery, route optimization, sustainability, transparency in communication, control shared over parcel delivery, delivery success rate, and technology, among others.

2. Speed

A World Economic Forum (WEF) study concluded that around 82% of shoppers had bought something from an eCommerce site within a 3 months period. The rate of same-day and express deliveries is growing annually by an average of 36% and 17%, respectively. Therefore, speed is no longer a secondary feature, but a primary one in the customer journey and will soon be taken for granted.

By offering express delivery, you will not only gain a competitive advantage and acquire customers, but you will also have the first entrant advantage to a market trend that you will eventually have to join to meet market expectations.

3. Transparency

Customers expect to know everything about their parcel at all times. Therefore, transparency is something that most last-mile delivery providers have been trying to achieve, but not all offer. Being transparent by communicating the parcel status, real-time track and trace, and exact delivery time is challenging and is considered a must by many consumers today.

4. Sustainability

The logistics industry is one of the most pollutant industries in the 21st century. With the growth of environmental awareness, sustainability is something most customers look for in their deliveries, which itself comes with an extra cost. Traditional logistic networks are vehicles-oriented and are heavily related to highly carbon-emitting methods.

WEF concluded that emissions from last-mile delivery traffic would go 32% higher and cause 21% more congestion in the cities. Therefore, it is crucial that you find sustainable delivery options for your eCommerce business.

5. Customer relation

It is rather difficult to maintain a proper customer relation with all the previous challenges. Therefore, the last step of the last-mile delivery must be a success. Communicating with your customer through order status updates and well-trained delivery people is essential for the success of the customer experience.

So how can you avoid all these challenges, you ask? The answer is simple, Packaly!

How Packaly Solves Last-Mile Challenges

Packaly is a last-mile delivery company that offers solutions to all the previous challenges and adds more benefits to the last-mile experience. At Packaly, we aim to make on-demand delivery available for all. Some of the ways we tackle these challenges are:

1. Technology

Technology is what makes eCommerce successful, and last-mile delivery is no different. We are tech-driven. We use technology to offer you the most convenient last-mile delivery solutions.

Packaly's Delivery Dashboard

We have our in-house developed plug & play Delivery Dashboard, allowing you to get up and running within several minutes and get your parcels delivered within the next hour. Start shipping with Packaly’s plug & play Delivery Dashboard.

Packaly's API

We offer our API allowing you to integrate Packaly seamlessly into your eCommerce website. Read our API documents.

Packaly’s integrations

We offer easy-to-set-up integrations for your webshop, with a fully automated checkout option display and express delivery processing. Check the integrations Packaly offers and start shipping right away.

2. Different services

At Packaly, we believe in providing you with the best options that fit your business model. Therefore, we offer different services for your business needs.

On-Demand Express Delivery

Our on-demand express delivery gives you a competitive advantage over your competition, helping you boost your customer experience and loyalty while using local resources and being completely CO2-neutral with your deliveries.

Capgemini Research institute’s 2019 report on last-mile delivery concluded that 55% of consumers say that an express delivery option would increase their loyalty, while only 19% of firms offer express delivery. Read our case studies on how our express delivery helped our partners grow.

Same-Day & Next-Day Scheduled Delivery

Capgemini Research Institute also reported that 73% of customers prefer having their parcel delivered in a convenient time slot rather than just quickly. Still, only 19% of the stores consider this a priority. Let your customer choose the time that suits them best and stay on top of their parcel with our real-time track and trace feature.

Our scheduled delivery service gives you the chance to offer the convenience of scheduling the delivery to fit your customer’s needs without having to handle extra costs.

3. Sustainability​

At Packaly, we aim to create a positive impact, one parcel at a time. A part of that impact is to create a greener world. Unlike most last-mile solutions companies, we are sustainable, and we only ship 100% CO2-neutral.

In simpler words, we leave green traces everywhere we go. We only allow bikes, focus on our output, and aim to eliminate any source of emissions throughout the whole last-mile process.

4. Ship from Store

With Packaly, you don’t need a hub to have your parcels delivered but the opposite. We help you turn your store into a dark store, where you can use the stock in your physical shop to deliver your products straight from store-to-door, cutting your costs and improving your work efficiency.

5. Track and Trace​

Our real-time track and trace feature lets you and your customer track the exact location of your parcel on the map and the precise time of delivery, boosting your customer experience and saving you other nuances with the proper technology and an average support reply time of 1 minute.

6. Algorithm

As a tech-driven company, we have developed a multi-drop algorithm that allows our Riders to pick up and deliver multiple parcels at a time, cutting delivery time and enabling you to reach more customers on the same day!

It couldn’t get any better, right? Some other benefits that come with Packaly are:

• Fixed pricing model, no hidden costs, clear and simple

• 7 days a week operations

• Our age verification if your product requires it

• Damage and loss insurance

• Professional bike fleet that ensures proper communication with your customers

• Live support team 7 days a week for all of the needs for you and your customers

• Delivery verification through a uniquely generated code

The last-mile delivery is an essential part for the success of your eCommerce business, and choosing the right partner for your last-mile delivery could be challenging and have direct effects on your business and customers.

At Packaly, we ensure that we provide all the solutions to tackle the challenges you might face, and we have the technology to do so. Sign up for our Delivery Dashboard and give your customer a sustainable and transparent last-mile delivery experience within minutes.