Braking News

Content for Drivers

The Final Mile Delivery Market

Supply chain logistics involves the movement of goods from their origin or manufacturing point to the end-user, often requiring detailed planning, and specialized transportation and storage services along the way.

An Overview of Final Mile Delivery

Final Mile delivery, also known as Last Mile, refers to the end stage of the delivery process where goods are delivered directly to the consumer.

Final Mile deliveries may be subdivided into two main categories: big and bulky items like furniture, exercise machines, and yard equipment, and small packages such as electronics, clothing, kitchen items, health & beauty aids, and food.

Final Mile Sector Growth

For the purposes of our discussion, we’ll be focused on the latter: small packages transported from a local distribution center to the customer’s doorstep or nearby secure location. It’s almost hard to remember the days before shopping online became widely accepted, and before e-commerce and therefore final mile deliveries increased exponentially. According to Forbes magazine, in 2023, 20.8% of all retail purchases are expected to take place online, growing to 24% by 2026.

Advancements in Final Mile

During the pandemic, e-commerce and home deliveries grew from a novelty to a necessity, and buzz words like omnichannel marketing came into use to describe the myriad and integrated methods businesses employed to reach their audiences. In turn, this explosive retail growth meant that advanced logistics software needed to be developed to optimize delivery routes and satisfy increasingly demanding customers looking for two-day, one-day, and even same-day deliveries.

Today Final Mile deliveries are made using a wide array of vehicles and service types, including:

  • Commercial vans
  • Cars
  • Electric bicycles
  • Robots
  • Airborne drones, and, the old standby…
  • On foot

Some advanced prototypes are still being tested in small markets, but greater adoption is coming. Just this week it was announced that Oracle and Uber, supported by cloud platform technologies, are teaming up to offer Last Mile deliveries, allowing customers more delivery schedule choices and options, as well as returns to the closest retail or postal location (Source: Yahoo Finance). 

Zipline, the top player in drone Final Mile services with over 750,000 deliveries to date, just received FAA authorization to operate beyond visual line-of-site, and Roadie, a crowdsourced delivery platform, launched a service enabling same-day local deliveries from retailer’s warehouses to residential addresses. The rapid advances in GPS tracking, mobile apps, and real-time notifications all allow companies to explore multiple delivery options for small packages.

Reverse Logistics in the Last Mile Sector

Something most consumers hear less about, but which has a dramatic impact on a retailer’s bottom line, is “reverse logistics” or returns. Managing returns for small packages can be a complex, time-consuming, and expensive business and requires highly efficient processes to handle effectively.

Companies like Amazon have greatly streamlined the returns process by allowing customers to bring items to a collection point such as a local UPS store, where the return QR code is scanned, the item is dropped off and the consumer is credited within the same day.

Reverse logistics is as much a part of the Final Mile equation as deliveries but far less desirable. According to Ecommerce Fastlane, e-commerce sales average a national 18.1% return rate, compared to physical stores return rate of between 8-10%.

B2B, B2C, and C2C

The Final Mile Market has three key market segments:  business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), and consumer-to-consumer (C2C), as in peer markets like eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and Poshmark. The B2C segment delivers products directly to individual consumers, and while Amazon remains the biggest player in this market, Walmart, Target, and others have all transformed the retail experience and created efficient delivery networks. 

B2B Final Mile services vary from pallets of bulk goods and raw materials to pool distribution delivering smaller packages to retail stores. Pool distribution, such as that provided at Pace, might be described as carpooling for packages instead of people. Large truckloads of freight are brought from the manufacturer to a regional warehouse in order to load and ship them onto smaller trucks that stop at multiple stores along a local delivery route. Unlike Less-than-truckload, freight from only one customer is pooled onto a box truck or van, whereas with LTL, inventory from multiple customers is pooled and consolidated on a route.  The Final Mile delivery market is a rapidly growing industry that shows no signs of slowing down. Final Mile market share is expected to increase a whopping $143.75 billion by 2026 according to a recent market study by Technavio. This is due to the increasing demand for e-commerce and same-day deliveries, spurred on by consumables like food and ready-to-eat orders.

Some trends to watch out for include an increased focus on environmental sustainability using alternative transportation methods such as drones and electric and autonomous vehicles, and the utilization of advanced technology to optimize route planning and delivery transparency.

Search
Latest Braking News

The Final Mile Delivery Market

Supply chain logistics involves the movement of goods from their origin or manufacturing point to the end-user, often requiring detailed planning, and specialized transportation and

Read More »
pace drivers

Solving Logistics Together

Solving Logistics Together is a Pace passion. As we celebrate our 25-year anniversary as a preferred Logistics Service Provider (LSP) and seasoned regional carrier, renewing

Read More »

Privacy Policy

PACE takes your privacy very seriously; in general, you can visit PACE websites without telling us who you are and without revealing any information about yourself. There are times, however, when we may need information from you.

PACE does not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with other people or nonaffiliated companies except to provide products or services you’ve requested, when we have your permission, or under the following circumstances:

  1. We provide the information to trusted partners who work on behalf of or with PACE under extremely strict confidentiality agreements. These companies may use your personal information to help PACE communicate with you about offers from PACE and our marketing partners. However, these companies do not have any independent right to share this information.
  2. We have a parent’s permission to share the information if the user is a child under age 13.
  3. We respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims.
  4. We believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, or as otherwise required by law.
  5. We transfer information about you if PACE is acquired by or merged with another company.

You may choose to give us personal information, such as your name and address or e-mail id that may be needed, for example, to correspond with you, to download our white papers or to provide you with a subscription. If you tell us that you do not want us to use this information as a basis for further contact with you, we will respect your wishes. We intend to protect the quality and integrity of your personally identifiable information.

We will make a sincere effort to respond in a timely manner to your requests to correct inaccuracies in your personal information. To correct inaccuracies in your personal information please return the message containing the inaccuracies to the sender with details of the correction requested.

Terms of Use

The following terms and conditions will be deemed to have been accepted by the User on usage of the website pacedelivers. You are requested to read them carefully before you use the services of this site.

  1. The term User shall refer to the user who is browsing the site. The term PACE shall refer to PACE Inc. The term Site refers to http://www.pacedelivers.com owned and monitored by PACE.
  2. By using the Site, you agree to follow and be bound by the following terms and conditions concerning your use of the Site. PACE may revise the Terms of Use at any time without notice to you. Areas of the Site may have different terms of use posted. If there is a conflict between the Terms of Use and terms of use posted for a specific area of the Site, the latter shall have precedence with respect to your use of that area of the Site.
  3. PACE may terminate User’s access at any time for any reason. The provisions regarding to disclaimer of warranty, accuracy of information and indemnification shall survive such termination. PACE may monitor access to the Site.
  4. All content present on this site is the exclusive property of PACE. The software, text, images, graphics, video and audio used on this site belong to PACE. No material from this site may be copied, modified, reproduced, republished, uploaded, transmitted, posted or distributed in any form without prior written permission from PACE. All rights not expressly granted herein are reserved. Unauthorized use of the materials appearing on this site may violate copyright, trademark and other applicable laws, and could result in criminal or civil penalties. PACE is a registered trademark of PACE Inc. This trademark may not be used in any manner without prior written consent from PACE.
  5. PACE does not make any warranties, express or implied, including, without limitation, those of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to any information, data, statements or products made available on the Site.
  6. The Site, and all content, materials, information, software, products and services provided on the Site, are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. PACE expressly disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
  7. PACE shall have no responsibility for any damage to User’s computer system or loss of data that results from the download of any content, materials, information from the Site.
  8. PACE may change or discontinue any aspect of its website at any time, including its content or features. PACE reserves the right to change the terms and conditions applicable to the use of the Site. Such changes shall be effective immediately upon notice, which shall be placed on the Site.
  9. In no event will PACE be liable for damages of any kind, including without limitation, direct, incidental or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, damages for lost profits, business interruption and loss of programs or information) arising out of the use of or inability to use PACE’ website, or any information provided on the website, or in the Products any claim attributable to errors, omissions or other inaccuracies in the Product or interpretations thereof. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability. Accordingly, some of the above limitations may not apply to the User.
  10. User agrees to indemnify, defend and hold PACE harmless from and against all losses, expenses, damages and costs, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising out of or relating to any misuse by the User of the content and services provided on the Site.
  11. The information contained in the Site has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. PACE disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information.
  12. PACE makes no warranty that: (a) the Site will meet your requirements; (b) the Site will be available on an uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free basis; (c) the results that may be obtained from the use of the Site or any services offered through the Site will be accurate or reliable.
  13. The User’s right to privacy is of paramount importance to PACE. Any information provided by the User will not be shared with any third party. PACE reserves the right to use the information to provide the User a more personalized online experience.
  14. The Site provides links to web sites and access to content, products and services from third parties, including users, advertisers, affiliates and sponsors of the Site. You agree that PACE is not responsible for the availability of, and content provided on, third party web sites. The User is requested to peruse the policies posted by other web sites regarding privacy and other topics before use. PACE is not responsible for third party content accessible through the Site, including opinions, advice, statements and advertisements, and User shall bear all risks associated with the use of such content. PACE is not responsible for any loss or damage of any sort User may incur from dealing with any third party.

We got your message!

Thank you – we’ll be in touch soon.

Thanks for your interest!

We will keep your information on file and let you know if an opportunity becomes available in your area.