The pandemic has definitely boosted a sector that had already experienced exponential growth in recent years: eCommerce. The months of lockdown, together with restrictive measures that have forced many businesses to cease operations, have led to new trends and consumption habits.
Although Spain already had a high proportion of users buying through the internet, last year growth in the eCommerce market in Spain was the third highest in the world, according to an eMarketer report. eCommerce has opened many doors to a part of the population who, because they needed to or were afraid of infection, decided to place their first online order during the pandemic, and they may well continue to do so.
The figures reflect the growing importance of this channel in recent months, and it has become a convenient, fast and effective alternative. This boom would not have been possible without the great effort that companies have made with last mile logistics to deal with the huge volume of orders.
Increase in shipping problems
Unfortunately, this growth in demand also translates directly into an increase in the issues affecting shipments: delays, loss or misdirection of packages, theft, etc. This challenge is leading the logistics industry to rethink the traditional supply chain to adapt it to the market’s new needs.
How to prevent problems
With customers becoming increasingly demanding, the last stage in delivering orders must be optimised to minimise problems. To achieve this, it is essential to have a detailed analysis of the whole process, in order to identify conflictive routes and automate procedures. It is a question of preventing incidents, not of solving them and allocating vast resources to this.
A broker specialising in the rapidly changing world of transport, who is aware of the logistical reality of the last mile, can help provide a response to the needs of the sector. Risk management from a service quality perspective, with fully-traceable incident tracking, facilitates new quality assurance models and, above all, achieves total transparency regarding risk for the company’s insurers. This helps to ensure that the relationship with them is long-term and policy renewals do not become a headache.
Businesses can go from managing millions of incidents a year to just a few hundred, thanks to the advice of a team of experts with extensive experience. The optimisation of the last mile is closer than ever, benefiting both companies and consumers.
The last link in the distribution process can cease to be a critical point and simply become the friendly face of retail, thanks to the delivery teams who work tirelessly every day to get packages to our homes.
