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E-commerce vocabulary · Shipping and Fulfillment

Last-mile delivery

Meaning in e-commerce, with examples

nounCommon term

In e-commerce, last-mile delivery means: The final stage of delivery, from a local hub to the customer's door or pickup point; often the most expensive and difficult part of shipping.

In Turkish: son kilometre teslimatı, son mil teslimatı

How it is used

Used in logistics planning and in news about delivery startups, couriers and parcel lockers. Companies improve, speed up or reduce the cost of last-mile delivery. Often just called 'the last mile'.

Example sentences

  1. Parcel lockers make last-mile delivery cheaper because couriers make one stop instead of twenty.

  2. Most delays happen in last-mile delivery, not in the warehouse.

Common collocations

  • last-mile delivery
  • last-mile costs
  • last-mile carrier
  • the last mile
  • carrierA company that picks up parcels from sellers and delivers them to customers, such as a national post service or a private courier company.
  • shippingSending orders to customers by a delivery company, and also the fee or service option for doing so, such as standard or express shipping.
  • click and collectA service in which customers order online and pick up their items from a physical store or collection point instead of having them delivered.
  • estimated delivery dateThe day or date range on which a customer can expect an order to arrive, shown before purchase and in shipping messages.

More terms: Shipping and Fulfillment

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