Optimizing Your Final Mile Carrier Network
Retailers have more ways than ever to orchestrate final mile delivery. That’s a good thing, because delivery performance has never been more important. Research shows that more than half the factors driving customer value in omnichannel retail today are related to logistics. (McKinsey & Company) And expectations increasingly extend beyond traditional parcel shipments to big […]
Evaluating Last Mile Delivery Companies: 5 Factors to Consider
The bar for last mile delivery continues to rise. While customers expect fast service and tight delivery windows for everything they buy, retailers struggle to keep up. As it is, most retailers only expect 76-80% of their shipments to arrive on time. (Supply Chain Dive) With these low expectations, it’s clear that performance among last […]
Expedited Delivery: What It Is and Why Customers Value It
Customer expectations have risen a lot in recent years, especially when it comes to shipping and delivery. If your business isn’t able to deliver the products that customers purchase in a matter of days at most, many customers will turn to competitors like Amazon, Walmart, and Target that now offer expedited delivery for almost all […]
Ship From Store Delivery: When It Works, When It Breaks, and How Operators Get It Right
Ship from store delivery feels straightforward. The inventory is closer to the customer, so delivery should be faster and cheaper. In the right situations, it works well. But once fulfillment moves into the store, the store becomes part of the operation. And if the store is not set up for that, small issues tend to […]
Meeting Rising Retail Delivery Expectations
Retail delivery has changed fast. Not long ago, performance was mostly judged on cost and speed. Those things still matter, but they no longer tell the whole story. In my day-to-day conversations with retail operators, the ask is simple. Customers want to know what’s happening, when it’s happening, and trust that it’ll get done right. […]
What Failed Deliveries Really Cost Operations Teams
You don’t need a dashboard to know when a delivery is about to fall apart. A late pickup, the wrong truck, a dock team rushing to load freight that isn’t ready… These moments might seem small to some, but they set off a chain of events that ends in a reschedule or a claim. Anyone […]
Why On-Time Delivery Isn’t Enough
Every operations team tracks on-time delivery. It’s the headline number in every performance review and the first metric most leaders talk about when evaluating carrier performance. But the longer I’ve worked in this space, the clearer it’s become that on-time delivery doesn’t give you a complete picture of how well a network is running. You […]
Measuring the Last Mile: KPIs That Drive Performance
The last mile is the most expensive and unpredictable stretch of any supply chain. It’s where costs balloon, visibility breaks down, and the customer experience is won or lost. Yet even the largest delivery networks still measure it reactively, focusing on service recovery after problems appear instead of building systems that prevent them. Measuring last-mile […]
Consistency, Compliance, Cost: The Real Final Mile KPIs
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 Amazon Effect: Why Customers Expect Prime Speed for Everything
Amazon Prime has completely altered expectations for delivery. What started as two-day shipping on a limited set of items quickly became the gold standard for ecommerce and raised the bar for every industry that ships Customers don’t just want things fast. They expect them where they want, when they want it. And it doesn’t matter […]
