The Last Mile: Where You Win or Lose the Customer

In this first episode of Rozmowy Logistyków, Piotr Skobało and Adam Sobolewski discuss last-mile delivery — one of the most expensive and sensitive stages of the supply chain. They cover what to look for when choosing a courier or transport operator, how cost relates to delivery time, and the growing role of green delivery.

COST AND TIME MOVE TOGETHER

The basic trade-off when choosing a last-mile operator is cost versus delivery time — faster usually means more expensive. Express delivery can cost 30-40% more than standard (d+2 business days), and the price also depends on distance, shipment volume, the scope of additional services, and the number of dispatch locations (collecting from several warehouses complicates the process more than shipping from one). Parcel lockers and other alternative pickup points are generally cheaper than door delivery — the courier doesn't need to "catch" the recipient at a specific moment.

GREEN DELIVERY: A DECLARATION, NOT ALWAYS AN EXPENSE

In Western Europe (France, Italy, Spain), 60% of consumers already expect "green" delivery, but only 40% are willing to pay extra for it — a classic gap between declaration and wallet. Electric vehicle deliveries still cost more, not less, so companies (like IKEA, which contracts a percentage of electric fleet from its suppliers) have to consciously decide whether and how much of that cost to pass on to the customer, rather than assuming sustainability will finance itself.

CASH ON DELIVERY: STILL SIGNIFICANT IN EASTERN EUROPE

In Poland, around 11% of e-commerce transactions are still cash on delivery — in Romania it's as much as 30-40% of volume, while in Belgium, the Netherlands, or Germany it's just 1-2%. Dropping this option in Romania can cut off as much as a third of potential revenue in some categories. The price of this convenience can be high, though: cash-on-delivery shipments can cost 2-4 times more than standard, due to the collection handling fee and a much higher rate of failed, repeated delivery attempts.

PARCEL LOCKERS, DRONES, AND DELIVERY ROBOTS

In Poland, parcel lockers (InPost holds around 44% of the market) are the preferred delivery form for roughly half of consumers — in Sweden, despite a stated concern for sustainability, it's still only 13% of deliveries (up from 3% in 2018). Drone and autonomous-vehicle deliveries are moving past the experimental stage: Decathlon has tested drone transfers between stores, pharmacy chains are testing deliveries to end customers, and local restaurants are starting to order their own branded delivery robots instead of using general-purpose courier companies.

INTEGRATORS INSTEAD OF MANY SEPARATE CONTRACTS

The more product groups, markets, and shipment types a business has, the harder it is to manage integrations with each courier separately — hence the growing popularity of integration platforms (like Baselinker with over 60 integrations, or Romania's Postis), which often also act as courier-service brokers, giving access to better rates despite their own margin. Splitting volume across many couriers to meet varied customer expectations costs bargaining power — but a good integrator partly compensates for this, also taking on the burden of shipment-tracking integration.

THREE STEPS TO OPTIMIZATION

First, map the real customer needs for a given product category and market (is cash on delivery essential, or is home delivery the priority). Second, calculate the real cost of delivery including all additional services — because an apparent benefit (like enabling cash on delivery) can be eaten up by higher return costs. Third, have an open conversation within the organization about the trade-offs between time, cost, and quality, instead of trying to optimize all three at once.