There are more and more regular buyers from online stores; we all realize that when we talk about e-commerce we are not referring to the future… but to the present. In this context, having a transport agency prepared to operate in digital environments is key to sustaining the growth of electronic commerce.
In 2007, around 5.7 billion euros were billed and in 2017 more than 32 billion, and that is only in Spain, and a much greater increase is expected at the close of the 2018 financial year and of course a rise in 2019 billing as far as online purchases are concerned. More and more companies are selling online, physical stores that have opened up to this trend because otherwise they were losing a large number of sales; in fact, some businesses have gone under for not being prepared for online sales. New businesses are increasingly focused on online sales; but you can not only buy products, you can also hire services, such as booking sessions of physiotherapy, or the gym, the medical specialist… practically anything you can imagine you can now hire or buy online.
Buying online is becoming more and more prominent in our shopping habits. Through the different websites with a sales channel, we find a very wide variety of products and services, and if you add to this the ease and speed of delivery, we already have more than enough reasons to buy online.
As we have just mentioned, it is undoubtedly the fact that shipments have such good conditions that has largely made sales through e-commerce grow so much. But one thing has led to another, since the increase in online sales has forced courier companies to reinvent themselves, to go one step ahead and distinguish themselves from competing companies in order to move forward faster and with higher quality; in fact, as a result of this boom, courier companies dedicated solely to the logistics of e-commerce have been created.
Now the agencies that want to occupy a part of this market must integrate artificial intelligence and blockchain to give dynamism to their deliveries, especially in “last mile” services.
Companies specialized in facilitating online stores’ planning and management for e-commerce orders have appeared, with the aim of optimizing resources when managing and distributing items in the most convenient way; this is e-logistics. Many of these solutions rely on a specialized storage company that allows them to optimize resources, reduce costs and improve product turnover.
E-logistics companies provide support in several areas:
- Inventory management
- Order management
- Invoicing
- Returns
- Packaging
- Transport
- Storage
- Distribution.
What is last-mile delivery?
We refer to the ‘last mile’ as the process of delivering an online order to its buyer. It is therefore the last step in the distribution chain, and although of course all the previous steps are essential, this is one of the most important, but also the one in which the most incidents occur, so it becomes the most delicate link in the distribution chain.
These deliveries frequently take place in urban areas, so traffic, roadworks, pedestrian zones… sometimes make it difficult to deliver packages on time; however, it is necessary to make deliveries in a short period of time to meet customers’ expectations. Sometimes it is very costly to ensure that an order arrives at the expected time, and these costs are borne by the courier company.
At Dir Mensajería we have a fleet of vans, motorbikes, and bikes to make deliveries quickly and with the commitment to always arrive on time. This approach is especially effective when combined with local courier services aimed at quickly solving last-mile challenges in urban environments.
