Delivery is changing at the speed of light.
Fifteen years ago, customers wouldn’t have dreamed of receiving a delivery halfway around the world in just a few days.
But that’s the reality of modern delivery.
Disruptive technology, innovations in planning and delivery management, customer service, and even Amazon, all play a major role in shaping the future of delivery today.
Technically, the (r)evolution of delivery is already happening.
What will happen? What technology is driving the change today? How can you improve delivery and keep up in this age of disruption?
It’s time to take a look at the future trends that will shape delivery in 2025 and beyond.
Shipping companies now use GPS and IoT devices to track where shipments are and check their condition in real time. Unified tracking platforms make it easier to follow goods by providing live updates across different carriers and transportation methods.
Most buyers want to know exact delivery times, and online tracking helps meet that demand. While the technology isn’t brand new—GPS is commonly used for tracking—its implementation is usually straightforward, and the benefits are significant!
Tracking is advantageous for both senders and recipients. Senders can quickly monitor parcels, identify issues, and resolve them, while recipients can track their orders in real time. This latter aspect is especially important; a satisfied customer leads to loyalty towards your company.
Thereofre, in 2025, as e-commerce continues to grow and customer expectations for fast, reliable deliveries rise, real-time tracking will be essential for building trust and maintaining a competitive edge in the market.
The global omnichannel retail market is projected to reach $27.7 billion by 2030, per MarketsandMarkets.
Omnichannel retailing integrates various sales and media channels, letting customers browse on mobile devices and complete purchases in-store—creating a seamless, simplified shopping experience.
As e-commerce skyrockets to even greater heights, businesses will have to make even greater leaps to offer an omnichannel buying experience to shoppers.
What the state of delivery in time of the coronavirus has shown is that having a bricks-and-mortar store is not enough.
Businesses need to pull their resources together and create a seamless shopping experience across all channels, online and offline.
But this puts a lot of stress on the delivery logistics as well as the supply chain.
To achieve this, organizations will have to move away from the single or multi-channel supply in favour of omnichannel supply. But also, rethink the delivery and adopt new ways of planning the supply chain.
In 2025, supply chain organizations worldwide will see a significant increase in the adoption of omnichannel retailing.
For companies, faster fulfilment has always been a tug of war between convenience and cost.
For customers, it was always wishful thinking.
All of that changed once Amazon stepped on the scene.
Offering fast fulfilment has been one of the cornerstones behind its success. Amazon was able to leverage other revenue to offer consumers what they always wanted: on-demand delivery.
Moreover, according to a McKinsey report, millennial consumers are willing to pay up to 30% more for same-day or guaranteed delivery.
With rising demand for faster fulfillment, shippers now prioritize swift product movement and streamlined logistics, making rapid shipment processing the new standard and intensifying the need for efficient delivery planning in 2025.
To achieve faster fulfilment in 2025, companies will need to rely on the agility and flexibility of their supply chains.
This is a significant departure from traditional delivery planning that favoured reliability and low cost.
Instead, speed and convenience are priorities of today’s consumers.
Companies need to keep up with this demand and adapt to the new landscape since customers no longer care if they have to pay to receive that kind of service. All they want is for you to get it done.
To do that, you have to turn to delivery management software to create more flexible systems of operations. This will allow you to achieve two things:
Having an end-to-end solution, like delivery management software, enables companies to overcome these challenges via increased visibility over operations and real-time actionability.
For example, thanks to delivery management platforms, your dispatchers can already alter driver schedules and add deliveries as they come in.
This increases the rate of the fulfilment of the entire delivery and more importantly drives higher customer satisfaction.
But that’s not the only way customers will influence delivery management trends in 2025.
If companies want to win over modern consumers, they will also need to share their beliefs and values, and demonstrate real social responsibility.
Otherwise, companies seriously risk the boycott of their products or services.
In fact, the boycott sentiment is still going strong, where customers will boycott their favourite brands which don’t share their social beliefs.
You could have seen this first-hand in effect when people negated brands that didn’t support the Black Lives Matter campaign.
In the future, the biggest social issues will be sustainability and eco-friendliness.
So, what is environmentally friendly delivery?
“Green” delivery is becoming a popular trend. Companies that adopt it can enhance their brand image and gain customer loyalty.
Sustainability is a crucial issue that demands everyone's attention. Urban cities across Europe and the UK are actively tackling the challenges of congestion and the pollution that comes with it.
Don’t get us wrong, people will still pay the top price for convenience or effectiveness. But they also won’t mind spending a little bit extra, if it means choosing a green delivery.
And you can see this trend already unfolding.
💡 Research shows that Gen Z and Millennials are 27% more likely than older generations to buy from brands they believe care about people and the planet—highlighting how much sustainability influences their purchasing decisions.
That’s why many companies are already taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint, as they invest in Green Logistics, circular supply chains, and recycled or reusable packaging.
This doesn’t mean that companies don’t benefit from it.
Reverse logistics is helping companies make money by sending back used products for refurbishment or the recycling of raw materials.
And these steps are also driving other trends into contention.
In response to the need for sustainable omnichannel supply chains that are both flexible and agile, companies are turning to robotics to increase the speed of labour-demanding tasks.
As with everything, Amazon has been the front-runner, leading the charge for automation.
Amazon utilizes over 750,000 mobile robots, along with thousands of other robotic systems, to assist in moving, sorting, identifying, and packaging customer orders.
It is also investing heavily in unmanned vehicles and drones to serve its last-mile delivery.
Even more so, many other companies are leveraging robotic technology to speed up deliveries.
In Japan, for instance, customers can now have food brought right to their door by robots—thanks to Uber Eats launching robot-powered food delivery.
Even though it might not seem like it, investing in robots to perform repetitive tasks reduces the cost of human labour and increases output.
In the future, this will free up the necessary resources to provide fast and cost-effective delivery.
And while there is still a long way to go to total automation of shipping, in many countries around the world plans are underway to increase the robots-per-human density in the next ten years.
Route optimization finds the best, cost-effective routes between multiple stops. It involves planning routes that consider different addresses and optimizing for distance, time, and cost—all in real time.
This process organizes stop sequences to make reaching destinations more efficient.
Using route optimization software helps drivers find the fastest paths, cutting down on driving time and unexpected detours while also lowering fuel use.
Less mileage means using less fuel, which reduces carbon emissions and helps the environment.
In short, route optimization boosts efficiency in a big way.
Moreover, artificial intelligence and machine learning are transforming route optimization.
These technologies improve last-mile delivery efficiency by analyzing comprehensive datasets, including traffic patterns, weather conditions, and historical delivery performance. They also utilize real-time data to adapt to unexpected changes.
This combination helps create a seamless delivery experience for customers, making route optimization an essential tool for meeting the rising demands of efficient and sustainable logistics in 2025 and beyond.
Thanks to the adoption of cloud computing and IoT, big data is already playing a part in delivery planning and management.
In 2025, this role will expand to even greater heights.
Currently, companies focus on collecting vital data about customers, operations, and developing conditions in the field.
As this information becomes available, it will help shape delivery both in terms of understanding past performance and providing key insights into future trends.
For example, monitoring key metrics in delivery logistics will help optimize every segment of end-to-end delivery.
At the same time, it can provide key data on where and how much resources to invest to achieve the results.
Additionally, large databases of customer information will provide invaluable knowledge into consumer behaviour and delivery preferences.
This will help planners achieve greater accuracy when determining the future strategy of the delivery and help them reach their target goals based on those decisions.
Before now, diagnostic and predictive analytics have been successfully implemented in many supply chains to great effect.
Where one helps you track past performance, the other gives you insightful forecasts for the future.
Namely, big data and predictive analytics are transforming logistics, enabling companies to assess performance, forecast demand, optimize inventory, and gain insights to handle market changes.
However, when it comes to decision making they share a common fault: They don’t give you key data to make informed decisions.
Instead of answering questions What happened? (diagnostic analytics), and Why did it happen (predictive analytics), prescriptive analytics answers two more important questions:
What will happen?
What should I do?
It will let you know what steps to take to ensure future results that allow you to reach your goals.
And that’s something most delivery managers want to know in the first place.
It’s also why prescriptive analytics will have a big impact on the future.
The global prescriptive analytics market is valued at $9.56 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach around $82.31 billion by 2034, growing at a 24.2% annual rate.
So, it’s something you need to watch out for in the future.
Companies use artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize delivery routes, predict demand, and streamline inventory management.
With big data and prescriptive analytics, the need to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning as part of the digitalization of delivery is becoming increasingly apparent.
But, companies are not just using AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze and use big data.
According to Forbes, AI can help to dramatically improve the driver management process by streamlining workflows. It can completely manage certain processes while reducing the time needed to complete them.
So far, companies have leveraged the power of AI and machine learning to integrate it with other systems, such as cloud-based delivery management platform or warehouse automation.
As a result, they have been able to automate repetitive tasks such as inventory management; provide key insights such as identifying shopping patterns among customers; and support existing systems such as delivery and route planning.
Moreover, businesses can use generative AI to predict and prevent supply chain disruptions as well as understand why some deliveries fall through. This technology helps optimize key areas like inventory management, delivery routes, and resource allocation.
Generative AI can also create detailed reports, such as expense and delivery reports, making it easier to manage logistics. By adopting this technology, companies can stay flexible and quickly respond to challenges in the fast-changing world of logistics.
Recently, companies have started upselling products during delivery.
Is it a myth? Or is it a reality?
A delivery driver would drop-off your order, and politely ask if you want to buy anything else based on your previous deliveries.
Think of them as travelling salesmen who know what you want and never leave you empty-handed.
This type of delivery experience has only been enabled by two recent trends:
Based on the purchase histories of the customers on their route, drivers can stock their vehicles with additional inventory and sell them directly (should the customer ask for them again).
But this isn’t just a clever way to increase revenue and minimize delivery costs.
Maybe, a customer forgot to order something from your website, and the thought of paying for another delivery put him off the purchase. By offering the item at his doorstep, you demonstrate higher customer service.
At least for now, customers see it as a deeper level of care and convenience.
One thing is certain though, upselling will become a major part of the delivery experience in the years to come.
When looking at the trends that mark the delivery landscape in 2024, two patterns emerge.
One is the digitalization of delivery and the supply chain. The second is adapting to the changes brought about by these disruptive forces.
And when it comes to your delivery, it’s necessary to take both steps to secure a bright future for 2025.
A good place to start is with delivery management software. Luckily, it’s something we can help you with right now.
So, here’s the big question:
Are you ready to make the first step?
We have everything you need to start improving your delivery.