last-mile delivery

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the final leg of the supply chain in which goods are transported from a distribution hub or fulfilment centre to the end consumer's address, widely regarded as the most expensive, time-consuming, and environmentally intensive segment of e-commerce logistics; last-mile delivery accounts for an estimated 40–53 percent of total supply chain costs because it involves disaggregated, low-density delivery patterns that are difficult to optimise; solutions under development and deployment include electric cargo bikes, autonomous delivery robots, drone delivery, parcel lockers and crowd-sourced delivery models, and dynamic routing algorithms that consolidate deliveries efficiently; the surge in e-commerce has made last-mile performance a key competitive differentiator and a major source of urban traffic congestion and carbon emissions