Last-mile delivery success begins before the driver arrives

For years, last-mile delivery success has been viewed through the transportation lens. But more companies are starting to recognize that a successful delivery begins long before a package is loaded onto a truck.

Increasingly, retailers, logistics providers, and brands are recognizing that many last-mile problems originate much further upstream because of inventory allocation strategies, warehouse execution systems, order management systems, and even product development decisions. The final delivery may be the moment customers experience the problem, but the root causes often begin earlier in the supply chain.

That broader view of fulfillment execution was a central theme in a conversation with Prashant Shah, head of e-commerce for North America for A.P. Moller-Maersk, at the recent Home Delivery World event. While much of the discussion focused on Maersk’s evolving end-to-end logistics capabilities, the larger themes extended well beyond a single provider and reflected broader shifts happening across e-commerce fulfillment operations.

Shah argued the industry is increasingly using delivery, returns, and operational performance data to better understand upstream weaknesses that impact the customer experience long before the delivery driver arrives.

“I think they are using, and we are using our own data, to help them really understand where the issues upstream are happening,” he said.

That includes everything from inventory positioning and warehouse workflows to order timing and returns analysis.

Visibility alone isn’t enough anymore

Supply chain organizations today have access to enormous amounts of operational data. The challenge is translating that visibility into execution.

“Knowing a shipment is delayed is useful,” Shah suggested. “Knowing what to do next is where the value arrives.”

That operational reality becomes especially important in e-commerce fulfillment environments where customer expectations continue to compress around speed and reliability. Shah pointed to the ripple effects created when order timing, warehouse readiness, and carrier dispatch schedules become misaligned.

“If the order is placed and then the order is not ready to be picked up, it’s now late for the delivery to happen for the customer hands,” he explained. “That expectation of the customer that I’m supposed to get my order within a day, but now it’s not coming in a day, now it’s coming in two days, that expectation goes out of window.”

The issue, however, is not simply warehouse speed. It also involves inventory positioning, order velocity, carrier cutoff schedules, and regional network design.

“You can [study] the behavior of the customer, but you do not know when they’re going to place the order,” Shah said. He added that companies increasingly must think beyond warehouse operations alone.

Inventory allocation is a key factor in the success of e-commerce. How far does the driver have to drive to get the package and then make the delivery, for instance. Speed and efficiency inside the warehouse is important, but where the product is located starts the ball rolling toward success.

Reliability may now matter more than speed

Another important theme emerging across the retail and home delivery sectors is the growing emphasis on reliability over pure delivery speed. For years, e-commerce competition largely revolved around shortening delivery windows. But several conversations at Home Delivery World suggested the industry may be recalibrating customer expectations, particularly for larger or higher-value products.

Shah said the importance of speed versus reliability often depends on the type of customer and product category involved.

“What we have seen is anyone who is in the service side … they are very much focused on cost and speed,” he said. “When we start talking with the brand, the cost and the speed is not the conversation. The conversation becomes more about quality and reliability.”

As brands focus more heavily on protecting customer experience and reducing operational friction, managing customer expectations is coming into clearer focus.

“So if we tell the customer it’s coming Thursday between 12 and 6, it needs to be Thursday, between 12 and 6,” Shah said.

That consistency, he argued, matters more than simply promising ever-faster delivery windows. It also leans into proactive communication with the customer, which Shah said is “just as important as cost or our reliability.”

Returns data is becoming operational intelligence

Returns management was another recurring topic throughout Home Delivery World, particularly as retailers attempt to reduce the financial and operational costs associated with growing return volumes. Shah suggested that returns data is increasingly serving as an intelligence engine for brands trying to improve inventory allocation, product quality, and operational planning.

“The returns data is also helping the brands to create a better inventory allocation, better product development and other items around the whole flow of the product,” he said.

That feedback loop allows companies to identify recurring issues tied to damaged products, incorrect shipments, packaging failures, or delivery execution problems. Importantly, Shah emphasized that reverse logistics itself is becoming nearly as operationally important as outbound delivery.

That shift reflects the broader reality that fulfillment networks are no longer simply outbound transportation systems. They are increasingly closed-loop operational ecosystems where returns, replacements, inventory repositioning, and customer communications all feed into ongoing execution decisions.

End-to-end data is reshaping fulfillment strategy

As more logistics providers, retailers, and fulfillment operators expand into integrated service models, they are gaining broader visibility into where failures occur and how those failures impact the end customer. How that data connects is becoming more important.

“Yes, it absolutely helps out,” Shah said when asked whether broader end-to-end visibility improves operational troubleshooting. “Now we are seeing the end users are telling us where the problems are.”

That data, he said, allows organizations to identify recurring issues, isolate operational bottlenecks, and proactively redesign portions of the fulfillment network. In one example Shah shared, delivery performance problems in specific ZIP codes were traced back to carrier execution issues.

“We talked to the carrier,” he explained. “We changed the carrier and we reset the program again and now we are flying them.”

The broader takeaway is that last-mile delivery is no longer simply about transportation execution. It has become a reflection of how effectively companies synchronize inventory, data, warehouse operations, customer communication, and fulfillment strategy across the entire supply chain.

Or as Shah put it, “It is a true data intelligence port.”

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