by Walther Ploos van Amstel
New opportunities arise to design profitable last-mile delivery strategies. In particular, companies can influence customer behavior by choosing the lead-times or time-slots that are offered (capacity controls) and as well as their associated fees (pricing controls). These decisions ultimately seek to balance the capacity utilization and increase the profitability of the delivery operation.
A new Robeco report presents investment opportunities in growing e-commerce: warehouse automation providers, prime warehouse owners, software companies. E-commerce is booming, exposing its logistic backbone to an ever increasing bill. The e-commerce sector is therefore trying to find cheaper solutions with the help of innovative tools, such as robots that are learning to see and pick …
Home deliveries are the preferred method of delivery for consumers today. But, due to the specific, costly nature of home deliveries together with changes within society e.g. people working longer and more flexible hours and the competition between logistics providers, new more sustainable alternatives are being implemented. Automated parcel lockers being such an alternative.
Customer involvement is regarded as a new way to increase last mile efficiency. Improved delivery designs call for customer involvement although it is not clear how customers can be involved and what the consequences are for organizations and customers involved in the last mile.
An increase in e-commerce in B2B, B2C and C2C markets has given rise to a greater number of challenges around urban freight: increasing use of public space, pollution levels, noise, road congestion and safety. E-commerce results in more, and smaller, and time critical deliveries in cities. It’s clear that there is a need for improving …
Growth in e-commerce has led to increasing use of light goods vehicles for parcel deliveries in urban areas. A new paper by UK researchers provides an insight into the reasons behind this growth and the resulting effort required to meet the exacting parcel services offered by e-retailers which often lead to poor vehicle utilisation in the …
Pick any other major city the US, and the situation’s probably the same: a massive surge in deliveries to residential dwellings, one that’s outstripping deliveries to commercial establishments and creating a traffic nightmare. Citylab reports on the changing parcel delivery market from B2B to B2C.
Lots of attention has been given in recent years to the “massive” increase in delivery traffic in cities and residential districts. Web stores and the vans that deliver their parcels often get the blame for that. My neighbors wonder if it really can’t all just fit into one delivery van. They see PostNL, DHL, Albert …
Research from Cambridge University reviewed LML-related literature in the areas of operations management and supply chain within a time span of 15 years since 2000 to 2014 to gather previously researched LML structures and the design variables. An initial survey into the literature on last-mile logistics (LML) structures revealed that, despite the significant LML innovations and …
Cyber-Monday is the day in which the Unites States consumers massively buy on line. The steady growth of e-commerce has many people worrying that streets will be overwhelmed by delivery trucks ferrying cardboard boxes from warehouses to our homes. Cityobservatory did a ‘fact check’.