Last Mile Delivery is emerging as a competitive advantage for local retailers. 2020 Last Mile Delivery will certainly be even more challenging after the rise the new e-commerce. In fact, in September 2019, Onfleet surveyed 1,000 US consumers on online versus local store shopping and delivery expectations. 76% said they would be more inclined to order from local stores rather than from Amazon if they could get same-day delivery.

Consumer expectations will rise even further.

Same-day delivery will become the standard in 2020, putting more pressure on retailers that want to compete with Amazon. In fleet’s survey, 78% of respondents said that their experiences with Amazon had raised their expectations for all types of deliveries. This includes the B2C deliveries as well as C2C deliveries.

More retailers will add local same-day delivery. 

According to On fleet, we’re seeing a huge influx of retailers looking to add Same Day Delivery. Once primarily the bastion of restaurants, same-day delivery has become a popular option not just for national brick-and-mortar chains but also independent retailers with one or just a few locations who recognize that delivery can help them compete more effectively with online-only options such as Amazon. In the On fleet survey, 54% of consumers said they would be willing to pay local retailers for same-day delivery.

E-Commerce growth and its effect on last mile delivery.

E-Commerce has evolved into a $2.8 trillion global market where increasingly the default demand from customers is that they ‘need it now’. They want faster, cheaper delivery with greater control over their experience. The need to deliver more parcels faster and at a lower cost to meet customer expectations is increasing the pressure on retailers, delivery providers and their wider supply chain as the “last mile” – the final phase in the delivery process when the parcel reaches the end-customer – is the most expensive and time-consuming step of the fulfillment process.

As a result, these companies are looking to improve their operations by intelligently leveraging new technologies. These processes to improve efficiencies and reduce delivery costs.

Robotic delivery such as drone and autonomous network pilots will expand beyond the publicity stunt stage.

However, according to many tech consultants, we aren’t likely to see widespread deployment until 2022. Many companies such as Peyk are focusing on R&D of these trends and will get closer and closer to commercialising this in 2020. There are still regulatory issues, and the hardware costs are still prohibitive for most. The completion of NASA-designed UTM, a system for managing drone traffic, will provide a big boost for safe drone delivery. UTM is in testing right now and companies such as Peyk are hugely investing in the future tech.