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TRENDING

London’s Last Mile

The traditional supply chain

involves moving products from

suppliers through distribution

centres to retail stores, from

where the customers choose

their items and then transport

them from the store to their

homes. Business to consumer

delivery has until recently

been limited, with catalogues

providing the interface and

delivery times of up to a month

accepted as the norm by

the consumer.

Resourcing

this last

mile of the

supply chain

is one of

the greatest

challenges

to face the

logistics

industry

By Gordon

Reynolds,

Partner,

National Logistics

& Industrial

E

-commerce has completely changed this model. The

internet is increasingly the customer interface, with

the retailer’s role being one completing the customer’s

pick and delivering the item through the last mile of its

journey to the customer’s home, or another convenient

location. Importantly, all of this now happens within

hours, not months.

Resourcing this last mile of the supply chain is one of the

greatest challenges to face the logistics industry and is all

the more acute in major urban centres like London. High

population density creates significant demand. However,

there is acutely constrained land supply upon which to

develop new facilities to meet this growing need, and

competing land uses provide market constraints.

Whilst Amazon continues to grow its in-house final

mile delivery offering, the majority of retailers outsource

this process to parcel carriers such as DPD, Yodel and

Hermes. These operations need sites to be able to receive

goods, delivered by 40’ HGVs overnight and then move

them to smaller vehicles for onward dispatch to the

customer within the working day. The closer these parcel

hubs can be to the final delivery address, the more efficient

CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD

25

#TRENDING