What does the future of inner-city last mile logistics look like?

Delivery as a Service is the future of inner-city last mile logistics! The last mile describes the last leg of the supply chain to the end customer. This is often described as the most difficult step, because the last mile is associated with major logistical problems. Especially in metropolitan areas, high traffic volumes, noise pollution, environmental impact and high transport costs cause logistical problems.

For e-commerce, retail and gastronomy, the last mile has so far mainly meant costs and effort if they want to meet the demands of sustainability and customer satisfaction.

Capacities are not utilized

On the one hand, there are e-commerce, retail and gastronomy with a lack of delivery concept and the great demand for a sustainable solution. On the other side, there are many own small fleets that only transport their own volume and have an average of 50% free capacity. The problem so far has been to connect these two sides in an automated way and to use 100% of the available delivery capacity.  

But how to bring these problems together and connect underutilized fleets with retail and e-commerce?

The solution: Delivery as a service (DaaS)

Delivery as a service is a business model and stands for a service-oriented performance. The process is primarily oriented towards the demands and expectations of the customers. For example, this includes sustainable same-day and next-day delivery, time window delivery and shipment tracking.  

This is how DaaS works in practice:

DaaS enables retailers, online shops and restaurants to commission fast, local and climate-neutral delivery. The local delivery fleets receive new orders for their services with the connection and can thus increase their capacity utilization several times over.

The software acts as the missing interface!

Local delivery fleets are digitized and automated by Liefergrün's software solution. The delivery orders are created online. A suitable local e-car or cargo bike delivery fleet is automatically notified of the delivery order and carries it out. Same-day, next-day, and time-window deliveries are now easily and sustainably possible at the request of the end customer. To ensure maximum delivery quality and customer-friendliness, delivery tracking with real-time tracking is carried out in the relevant app.

Opportunities for both sides

The automation of delivery orders and the technological interface help e-commerce, retail and gastronomy to succeed. With this, the last mile can be overcome sustainably, quickly and easily. This in turn leads to the maximum shopping experience for the end customer. And delivery fleets can also reach their full capacity with the help of this system. How DaaS looks like in the use cases, for example in the gastronomy, you can read in the next article!

You want more orders for your delivery fleet? Become our partner now and click here!

Want to order sustainable and local deliveries? Register here!