Deliveries are supposed to be simple. But the final mile of a large-item order can turn into a nightmare, fueled by challenges that should have been avoided. With the right delivery partner and tracking specific final mile KPIs, the last leg of a drop-off doesn’t have to be a source of frustration or one of the reasons customers churn.
Let’s be real: Creating a fully optimized process for getting big and bulky products from a local warehouse or distribution center to your customers’ doorsteps isn’t always simple. However, it’s a major key to both minimizing delivery costs and ensuring a great customer experience.
In this article, we’ll go over some of the top last mile delivery challenges that companies face, as well as the solutions that companies can use to overcome them.
When delivery becomes the weakest link
When logistics leaders get together, there’s a good chance that at least a few of them will share the same horror story about a large parcel delivery gone sideways. The story usually goes like this: the delivery didn’t just miss the window, it derailed the entire order, costing us time, money, and customer loyalty.
58% of big, bulky items end in a rescheduled delivery, requiring more time and effort. Throw in damaged items, and suddenly the hidden costs of last mile delivery multiply.
For enterprise shippers, the ripple effect is brutal, leaving a wake of:
- Angry customers
- Overloaded support teams
- Brand erosion
- Dried-up margins
It’s why so many leaders end up searching for new delivery partners. As Jason Mitchell, Bungii’s Enterprise Sales Lead, put it: “The final mile would be easier if it were seamless. A lot of it gets injected into regional hubs and then another carrier comes and gets it.”
On the surface, it sounds like large parcel deliveries should just work. A package is sent, someone picks it up, and it is dropped off on a porch. Done.
But it doesn’t work that way. And unfortunately, large parcel deliveries come with a cost. Most ops leaders tell Mitchell their top concerns boil down to cost and performance. But dig deeper, and those issues are only symptoms of a broken system.
The KPIs that actually matter
Large parcel delivery is tough. Mitchell puts it like this: “You can know exactly where the truck is, but if the delivery fails, none of that matters. You’re paying for that delivery again, and in many cases, you’ve lost the customer for good. With big and bulky items, the cost of a failed delivery is far higher than a $10 Amazon package. Amazon will just replace it. But when a $2,000 couch doesn’t show up, you don’t get a second chance.”
But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Logistic leaders can deliver big, bulky orders on time without the headaches with flexible last mile logistics. It starts with tracking the right metrics.
What actually matters in the final mile comes down to three KPIs:
- Consistency: On-time delivery rates aren’t “nice to have.” They’re the bedrock of customer trust. Every late or rescheduled delivery chips away at customer satisfaction and increases churn risk.
- Compliance: Moving a 200-lb appliance isn’t the same as dropping a parcel at a doorstep. Compliance means trained, certified professionals who follow safety protocols, protect property, and leave the customer with confidence, not cleanup.
- Cost: Not just what you pay per route, but the downstream costs when things go wrong: claims, replacements, overtime, and the hidden overhead of customer service fire drills.
On paper, those KPIs sound simple. In practice, most legacy carriers can’t meet them. The reason is often structural, not situational.
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Why legacy carriers fail
Traditional carriers built their networks for small parcels like shoeboxes or books, not 200-pound sofas. The mismatch shows up in four ways:
- Coverage gaps: National in name only. Enterprise shippers often discover that their “nationwide” partner can’t reliably reach suburban or rural addresses.
- Rigid networks: When volume spikes, like seasonal peaks, promotions, or product launches, capacity dries up. Scaling up or down quickly is nearly impossible.
- Tech limitations: Without automation, every scheduling change turns into manual work for ops teams. Integrations are clunky, real-time visibility is rare, and reporting is incomplete.
- Operator misalignment: Parcel contractors aren’t trained to handle big and bulky freight, which leads directly to higher claims, property damage, and customer complaints.
All too often, these mismatches are due to outdated legacy practices, or, as Mitchell calls them, “inputs.”
Mitchell said, “What I mean by legacy inputs is legacy carriers with legacy practices, like bill of lading on a clipboard, things like that, or legacy asset classes and limited availability. All that optimization is great, but if you don’t have the right inputs at the bottom, it’s bad data in, bad data out. That’s why people look at Bungii as a new input, a different way to do it. Better, faster, and more efficient.”
Bungii’s Model: solving the problem others ignore
Bungii was built to address the failure of legacy outputs head-on. Instead of trying to retrofit parcel networks, we built a final mile model designed for big and bulky delivery. Here’s what that means in practice:
- Nationwide coverage: Same-day and scheduled capacity across the U.S., with consistent service in both metro and hard-to-reach areas.
- Certified delivery pros: A vetted network of pros trained for heavy, oversized, and high-value items. Every delivery pro is equipped to move freight safely and represent your brand.
- Reliability at scale: With a <0.2% claims rate and a 95% on-time delivery rate, Bungii proves that consistency isn’t aspirational — it’s operational.
- Technology that plugs in: API integrations, real-time visibility, AI automated routing, and dashboards that give ops teams the data they need without extra work.
At Bungii, we don’t force-fit your freight into one rigid solution. Deliveries aren’t always linear. We rely on smart technology to build a model that:
- Adapts to your operations
- Satisfies your customers
- Gives you an inside look into last mile delivery tracking for better coordination
As Mitchell put it: “The key to our technology is that it lets us design the right solution. Based on your volume, it decides what to send, when to send it, and how many assets are needed. Then, just as important, the tech drives delivery compliance. At the end of the day, that’s what really matters.”
The Enterprise Test: Scaling without chaos
For enterprise operations leaders, another vendor promising “disruption” invokes a deep, guttural sigh. And we get it. We’ve listened to our customers, and we understand that they need a partner that scales without introducing chaos. That means:
- No more juggling multiple regional providers just to cover your footprint.
- No more apologizing to customers for the third reschedule in a month.
- No more surprises for finance when claims, payouts, and support calls eat margins.
When the final mile works, it becomes a differentiator for your business. Customers get their delivery. Ops teams move on to the next task. Finance sees predictability instead of variance. And, that’s the point. The final mile should reduce headaches, not create them.
Final-mile delivery doesn’t have to be the weak link in your supply chain. With the right partner, the KPIs that matter, like consistency, compliance, and cost, are achievable.
If your current delivery partner is holding you back, it’s time to move forward. Let’s talk.
