According to a survey from parcel technology provider, Bringg, 99% of retailers will offer same-day delivery by 2025 as consumers continue to prioritize last-mile fulfillment speed and convenience. Currently 35% of retailers offer same-day delivery today.
However, Bringg found that many current last-mile fulfillment models do not support same-day or on-demand delivery with 36% of respondents noting that they do not have the technology for same-day delivery and 24% indicating that the distance they need to travel from warehouse to fulfillment is a primary obstacle to delivering on time.
Indeed, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, retailers have invested in a number of last-mile options such as curbside pick-ups, buy online, pickup in stores (BOPIS), and partnerships with such same-day providers as DoorDash, Instacart, and other crowd-sourced online platform providers that provide same-day deliveries.
Top e-commerce companies such as Amazon are also making significant investments in same-day and one-day deliveries. Besides competing on selection and price, e-commerce providers are competing on convenience.
In 2019 Amazon announced it would speed up its last-mile delivery Prime promise from free two-day service to one-day service. However, the COVID-19 pandemic put a dent in that promise as it, along with other carriers, struggled with supply chain issues.
In Amazon’s latest earnings announcement on February 3, CFO Brian Olsavsky told analysts, “We want to have the capacity to have a healthy retail and FBA business because that fuels prime in one-day delivery and two-day delivery and same-day delivery. So, that’s very important. But we see the [investments in] fulfillment centers piece likely moderating this year…We still see additional levels of investment in [transportation] in 2022…We’re going to plow a lot of our effort into increasing our transportation speeds and beating our pre-pandemic levels.”
Indeed, the connection between fulfillment and the last-mile is critical for fast and efficient deliveries. Retailers and e-commerce providers need to make sure that they invest in the right visibility and other technology tools as well as position inventory as close to customers as possible to help with last-mile speed and costs.
On the flip side, customers also want visibility before and after they hit the online buy button – the ability to ‘see’ available inventory, ‘see’ available delivery options based on timing at checkout and ‘see’ the ordered item on its last-mile journey, all in real-time.
Technology investments are expected to grow this year as same-day deliveries become more of an expected option of delivery.
Retailers that invest the quickest and most successfully will be rewarded by sales. According to a 2021 Digital Commerce 360/Bizrate Insights survey 68% of consumers said fast shipping would lead them to place an online order. Will your business be able to keep up with these higher consumer expectations?