Retailers invest in last-mile fulfillment as shoppers clamor for convenience: Growing ecommerce business has led companies to revamp their brick-and-mortar footprints and adopt autonomous delivery methods.

Retailers take last-mile fulfillment into their own hands: Companies like Costco and Amazon are building their own logistics networks, to the detriment of FedEx and UPS.

Gorillas’ $1 billion raise underscores the market opportunity for last-mile and fast grocery services: The US and EU markets are both heating up, putting pressure on Amazon and Instacart—but is the category sustainable?

Developing last-mile delivery partnerships. Building their own logistics networks. Predictions. Shipping and logistics will make or break ecommerce businesses. Consumers will be increasingly looking for cheaper, faster, and more efficient shipping options from retailers in 2022 as their appetite for—and comfort with—ecommerce grows.

Developing Last-Mile Delivery Partnerships. The last mile is a major challenge for retailers in Latin America. With time of the essence, these partnerships will play a crucial role in retailers’ ability to speed up delivery times, without eroding quality.

This news comes shortly after NowRx partnered with Hyundai to test last-mile medication delivery. The pair is testing automated dispatch, fleet management, and other last-mile optimization technologies. Hyundai will provide slightly modified Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles (its electric SUV) as part of the partnership.

Article: Last-mile fulfillment is the latest priority for retailers.

The effort is part of Ikea’s plan to allow for 24/7 deliveries and enable 60% of last-mile deliveries in London to have zero emissions. Whole Foods Market UK launched an online store for Easter meals, offering local grocery collection in London stores. Electric vehicles for grocery delivery and customer use.

The news: Last-mile content delivery network Akamai is buying Amazon Web Services (AWS) competitor Linode for $900 million as the trend of tech acquisitions continues in 2022. What this means: Akamai’s acquisition of Linode can help its goal to “become the world’s most distributed compute platform, from cloud to edge,” per The Register.

In locations with poor connectivity and infrastructure, retailers and platforms should work with on-the-ground local partners and agents—such as mom and pop stores—to overcome challenges with payments and last-mile delivery. For example, many local ecommerce giants in the region are tipping into a network of local mom and pop stores as fulfillment and payment collection centers.

Carriers are proposing “exclusion zones” around runways in airports where 5G’s C-band signals are reduced by at least 10 times on the runway or during the last mile of final approach and takeoff. The bigger picture: The FAA, airline operators, and the telecom industry will continue to battle over the 5G rollout as it relates to airline safety.

We expect Big Tech to take an accelerated role in network expansion in 2022 beyond laying intercontinental cable and facilitating last-mile connectivity in remote areas. Various tech companies are partnering with telecommunications companies and carriers to expand network connectivity.

Walmart is even entering the third-party delivery space with a new venture called GoLocal, opening up its last-mile delivery drivers to smaller businesses. Challenges:. Walmart+ is less than a year old, and its membership base is far smaller than Amazon Prime.

Rethinking Delivery: Focus on the Last Mile. Three main factors contribute to the environmental impact—chiefly CO2 emissions—of the “last mile” in ecommerce deliveries: vehicle type, the last facility parcels pass through before heading to the customer, and whether delivery to the customer can be completed; and if not, what happens to the parcel?

While autonomous ride-sharing may be further away for humans, it may already be a viable solution for last-mile delivery with companies. For humans, semi-autonomy may speed up adoption and create new opportunities.

Like many modern ecommerce platforms around the world, Shopee also offers digital payment solutions, food-delivery services, and last-mile logistics. Shopee has a reputation for serving Indonesia’s vast emerging middle class and exceling in first-tier cities and economically developed areas. Bukalapak rose to prominence with a different strategy.

This is unfolding just as Big Tech is expanding to own internet infrastructure as well as last-mile 5G networks, indicating even more consolidation of services under monolithic tech companies. The aging internet infrastructure is its own problem. The pandemic accelerated the remote work reality and exposed the weakness of overloading internet networks and infrastructure.

Google announced a partnership in July with Ericsson to provide last-mile 5G, albeit on a much smaller scale, in conjunction with Telecom Italia. Key stats: According to GSMA forecasts, operators are expected to spend $900 billion worldwide between 2021 and 2025 on mobile capital expenditures, nearly 80% of which will be in 5G, and much of this expenditure could run on cloud infrastructure.

Retailers can, however, take the time to explain potential delays and ensure their last-mile delivery and pickup options are up to snuff. (Hot). Trend 3: Making sustainability a core consideration. Consumer awareness of this issue was heightened during the pandemic, and it doesn’t show signs of easing. Retailers must take actions to address customer preferences in this regard. (Hot).

But retailers can, take the time to explain potential delays and ensure that their last-mile delivery and pickup options are up to snuff (Hot). Trend 3: Making sustainability a core consideration. Consumer awareness of this issue was heightened during the pandemic, and it doesn’t show signs of easing. Retailers must take actions to address customer preferences in this regard (Hot).

Amazon’s excess logistics capacity—the company acknowledged that it invested ahead of demand during the pandemic—will be redeployed toward its original ambitions of using last-mile superiority to narrow the immediacy gap between ecommerce and physical retail. We anticipate Amazon will lean further into its speed value proposition to create the next-step change in ecommerce growth.

“Unless a retailer has its own last-mile delivery capability, I don't see it being able to do much other than setting expectations with its customers that delivery times will be longer. Even a company like Amazon can't keep up—and it owns thousands of last-mile delivery trucks.”.

What this means: The State of Broadband Report reveals that while global internet access and adoption has made progress, greater efforts are needed to provide last-mile access, especially in developing countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report cites how pandemic-related shutdowns in 2020 and 2021 highlighted the need for a robust and accessible communications infrastructure.