Direct To Consumer Delivery Challenge

Consumer delivery, or last mile delivery, is a challenge from two directions; the initial delivery to the consumer and then the reverse logistics for returns from the consumer, to provide cost effective and delivery options to meet the consumers needs at the time of purchase.  These are both logistical and service related and there is simply no easy ‘one size fits all’ solution. The solution depends on the product and consumer, or market, expectations and in addition to the variances the expectations and demands are continuously changing from both expectations and capabilities.  The challenge for both retailer and carrier is keeping up with the velocity of demands from all players in the market and maintaining a rate of change that keeps up with the rate of the demands.

The demands and capabilities have changed dramatically over the last few years and the last mile carriers, especially such as FedEx and UPS, have been really brought their best offerings and ideas to play in order to maintain both market share and also service demands of the consumers.  These carriers have really felt the brunt of the consumer demands, really they are second only to the retailers, and these carriers have been creative and invested in technology and operations to improve service and increase transparency in the last mile services. I see a strength in these offerings because of the potential flexibility of the tools to easily shift to multi function capabilities through new technology offerings.  This is an area where truly only the imagination of the service provider and the consumer of the services limits the types of offerings.

The last mile delivery and then the reverse logistics services really require a type of  hand in glove relationship with both retailers and the consumer to coordinate both the start and the finish of the service.  You can see the example of the social network at work in these relationships and connections when you diagram the connection from the retailer to the consumer and they the retailer to the carrier and then the carrier to the consumer.  Each of these relationships and connections are first level connection and requires a means of two way communications to support the relationship and collaborate between the connections. In this model consumers have the opportunity to connect directly to each of the participants in the retail market and the transaction at hand.  

This transactional connection must be leveraged to create a relationship in order to encourage the partner to return.  In this model every participant is a consumer with the other participant and this requires and increased level of participation from all parties involved.  Like so many other retail activities the market is driven in a large extent by the imagination, consumer collaboration and size of Amazon. You see this in almost every interaction in the retail marketplace, from the first contact of the consumer to the last contact by the delivery and then the potential return or reverse logistics.  Retailers must encourage the relationship with all partners in order to ensure their success and this requires a commitment to the consumer relationship and meeting and exceeding consumer demands.