Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, 90%* of the consumers in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are spending more time ‘online’, thus leading to an increase in customers’ expenditure on e-commerce products. Hence, retailers must come up with innovative delivery solutions to meet this changed customers’ expectations and rapidly growing e-commerce demand, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

During COVID-19, retailers and delivery companies have taken measures to reduce physical contact with customers by evading the ‘recipients signing’ step for the deliveries. Instead, delivery drivers knock on the customer’s door and leave the parcel on the doorstep.

Ankita Roy, Retail Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Retailers are looking into emerging technologies that could help them with last-mile delivery. For instance, both startups and established players are striving hard to deploy drones, sidewalk robotics, and autonomous vehicles (AVs) to deliver products. Autonomous vehicle developers such as Gatik, Nuro, and Neolix have all registered a significant increase in demand for their vehicles during COVID-19.”

Amid the pandemic, Indian apparel e-commerce specialist Myntra enlisted local businesses under its MENSA (Myntra Extended Network for Service Augmentation) program that recruits small businesses and ‘Kirana stores’ to store and deliver items in their town or village to deal with the unprecedented demand and efficiently manage fulfilment times.

Roy continues: “Drivers’ non-appearances during COVID-19 and booming online orders have put a strain on the capacity of delivery companies, especially in the last mile leading to an increased demand for third-party partners such as local independent stores and delivery agents. This method became a more efficient fulfilment method than home delivery as it used existing infrastructure, mainly in central and accessible locations, and reduced delivery cost and time.”

Retailers are incorporating more scalable and adaptable solutions in supply chain management to stay relevant in a highly dynamic and rapidly changing market. Increasing labor shortages, growing real estate rental prices, and fulfilment demands are the major factors driving companies to deploy single automation processes that manage supply chain areas.

Roy concludes: “Supply chain automation is crucial as it lowers supply chain costs and optimizes operational processes to improve efficiency. These areas include warehouse management, instore inventory, shelf management, logistics, product lifecycle, and demand analysis. Synchronized planning of supply chain management will enable growth in strategic markets, speed up the order-to-cash process, and offer opportunities for business expansion. Although the initial cost of advanced technologies is extremely high and can cause short-term disruption, the potential long-term profitability will encourage retailers to adopt these systems.”

*Data taken from GlobalData’s survey of 6,000 APAC consumers, aged 16+ conducted in early October 2021.