Delivery (commerce)

Last updated December 15, 2024

Delivery is the process of transporting goods from a source location to a predefined destination. Cargo (physical goods) is primarily delivered via roads and railroads on land, shipping lanes on the sea, and airline networks in the air. Certain types of goods may be delivered via specialized networks, such as pipelines for liquid goods, power grids for electrical power and computer networks such as the Internet or broadcast networks for electronic information.^[1] Car transport is a particular subgroup; a related variant is Autorack, which involves the transport of autos by railroads.

Delivery is a fundamental component of commerce and trade, and involves transport and distribution. The general process of delivering goods is known as distribution, while the study of effective processes for delivery and disposition of goods and personnel is called logistics. Firms specializing in delivering commercial goods from the point of production or storage to their point of sale are generally known as distributors, while those that specialize in the delivery of goods to the consumer are known as delivery services. Postal, courier, and relocation services also deliver goods for commercial and private interests.

Consumer goods delivery

Most consumer goods are delivered from a point of production (such as a factory or farm) through one or more points of storage (warehouses) to a point of sale (such as retail stores or online vendors), where the consumer buys the good and is responsible for its transportation to point of consumption. There are many variations on this model for specific types of goods and modes of sale. Products sold via catalogue or the Internet may be delivered directly from the manufacturer or warehouse to the consumer's home, or to an automated delivery booth. Small manufacturers may deliver their products directly to retail stores without warehousing.

Some manufacturers maintain factory outlets which serve as both points of storage and points of sale, selling products directly to consumers at wholesale prices, although many retail stores falsely advertise as factory outlets. Building, construction, landscaping and like materials are generally delivered to the consumer by a contractor as part of another service. Some highly perishable or hazardous goods, such as radioisotopes used in medical imaging, are delivered directly from manufacturer to consumer.

Home delivery is often available for fast food and other convenience products, e.g. pizza delivery.^[2] Sometimes home delivery of supermarket goods is possible.^[3] A milk float ^[4] is a small battery electric vehicle (BEV), specifically designed for the delivery of fresh milk. A new form of delivery is emerging on the horizon of the internet age: delivery by the crowd. In this concept, an individual not necessarily contracted by the vendor performs the delivery of goods to the destination. Sometimes, private courier companies will also deliver consumer goods on a regular basis for companies like E-commerce businesses.

In the 2010s and 2020s, a number of companies started using gig workers driving their own vehicles rather than permanent employees driving company vehicles to make deliveries of groceries, food, and general retail items. Drivers typically sign up and get work assignments using a smartphone app. Arrangements range from producers and deliveries made by separate companies (such as with Uber Eats, DoorDash and GrubHub) to in-house deliveries only (such as Amazon Flex, although Amazon also uses contracted delivery companies in Amazon-branded vehicles), to a mixture (such as Walmart Spark, which delivers both Walmart and third-party products).

Delivery vehicles

The consumer demand for supermarkets to deliver to their door created the need for a mixed temperature controlled vehicle on 3.5T chassis. These vehicle bodies were initially built with the traditional GRP sandwich panels but as more damage resistant lightweight materials with better insulation properties have become available companies have been developing Advanced Home Delivery Vehicles. The 2012 Commercial Vehicle Show in the UK saw the new JDC PolyBilt design, one of the latest of these "Plastic" bodies that can be recycled at the end of its service life, unlike the traditional GRP which ends up as landfill.

Vehicles are often specialized to deliver different types of goods. On land, semi-trailers are outfitted with various trailers such as box trailers, flatbeds, car carriers and other specialized trailers, while railroad trains include similarly specialized cars. Armored cars, dump trucks and concrete mixers are examples of vehicles specialized for delivery of specific types of goods. On the sea, merchant ships come in various forms, such as cargo ships, oil tankers and fishing boats. Freight aircraft are used to deliver cargo.

Often, passenger vehicles are used for delivery of goods. These include buses, vans, pick-ups, cars (e.g., for mail or pizza delivery), motorcycles and bicycles (e.g., for newspaper delivery). A significant amount of freight is carried in the cargo holds of passenger ships and aircraft. Everyday travelers, known as a casual courier, can also be used to deliver goods.

Delivery to remote, primitive or inhospitable areas may be accomplished using small aircraft, snowmobiles, horse-drawn vehicles, dog sleds, pack animals, on foot, or by a variety of other transport methods.

New methods of delivery, such as delivery robots and delivery drones, have been introduced. Larger firms including Amazon, Google, and FedEx have been investing in using delivery drones that are capable of carrying light packages across short distances. Such firms may also use a Delivery Driver App to plan efficient routes to help ensure they deliver items on time.^[5]

Periodic deliveries

Some products are delivered to consumers on a periodic schedule.^[6] Historically, home delivery of many goods was much more common in urban centres of the developed world. At the beginning of the 20th century, perishable farm items such as milk, eggs and ice, were delivered weekly or even daily to customers by local farms. Milkmen delivered milk and other farm produce. With the advent of home refrigeration and better distribution methods, these products are today largely delivered through the same retail distribution systems as other food products. Icemen delivered ice for iceboxes until the popularization of home refrigerator rendered them obsolete in most places. Similarly, laundry was once picked up and washed at a commercial laundry before being delivered to middle-class homes until the appearance of the washing machine and dryer (the lower classes washed their own and the upper classes had live-in servants). Likewise deliveries of coal and wood for home heating were more common until they were replaced in many areas by natural gas, oil, or electric heating.^[7] Some products, most notably home heating oil, are still delivered periodically. Human blood may be delivered to hospitals on a periodic schedule.^[6]

Milk delivery continued until the mid-twentieth century across North America. For example, the last milk delivery by horse-and-wagon in Edmonton was in 1961.^[8] Milkman jokes continue in circulation long after. Related lines of Jeannie C. Riley's 1968 hit song "Harper Valley PTA" say:

There's old Bobby Taylor sitting there, and seven times he's asked me for a date,
And Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lot of ice whenever he's away.

Related Research Articles

A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. There is some variation in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, microvans, are used for transporting either goods or people in tiny quantities. Mini MPVs, compact MPVs, and MPVs are all small vans usually used for transporting people in small quantities. Larger vans with passenger seats are used for institutional purposes, such as transporting students. Larger vans with only front seats are often used for business purposes, to carry goods and equipment. Specially equipped vans are used by television stations as mobile studios. Postal services and courier companies use large step vans to deliver packages.

United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is an American multinational shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has expanded to become a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest shipping couriers. UPS today is primarily known for its ground shipping services as well as the UPS Store, a retail chain which assists UPS shipments and provides tools for small businesses. UPS offers air shipping on an overnight or two-day basis and delivers to post office boxes through UPS Mail Innovations and UPS SurePost, two services that pass on packages to the United States Postal Service for last-mile delivery.

Package delivery or parcel delivery is the delivery of shipping containers, parcels, or high-value mail as single shipments. The service is provided by most postal systems, express mail, private courier companies, and less-than-truckload shipping carriers. Package delivery is different in each country, and how packages are delivered is closely connected with the cost for delivering to that country as well as population. In 2019, China, The United States, and Japan were the leaders in package delivery while Latvia, Macau, and Iceland were the bottom three. The population of the bottom three barely totals 2 million while the population of the top three tops totals more than 2 billion. Package delivery is an every day occurrence in the US while many other countries do not have this luxury.

A railroad car, railcar, railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck, also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truck, is a vehicle used for the carrying of cargo or passengers on a rail transport network. Such cars, when coupled together and hauled by one or more locomotives, form a train. Alternatively, some passenger cars are self-propelled in which case they may be either single railcars or make up multiple units.

A grey market or dark market is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorised by the original manufacturer or trademark proprietor. Grey market products are products traded outside the authorised manufacturer's channel.

In transportation, freight refers to goods conveyed by land, water or air, while cargo refers specifically to freight when conveyed via water or air. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facilities, including warehouses.

A milk float is a vehicle specifically designed for the delivery of fresh milk. Today, milk floats are usually battery electric vehicles (BEV), but they were formerly horse-drawn floats. They were once common in many European countries, particularly the United Kingdom, and were operated by local dairies. However, in recent years, as the number of supermarkets, small independent grocers and petrol stations, and convenience stores stocking fresh milk has increased, many people have switched from regular home delivery to obtaining fresh milk from these other sources.

Cross-docking is a logistical practice of Just-In-Time Scheduling where materials are delivered directly from a manufacturer or a mode of transportation to a customer or another mode of transportation. Cross-docking often aims to minimize overheads related to storing goods between shipments or while awaiting a customer's order. This may be done to change the type of conveyance, to sort material intended for different destinations, or to combine material from different origins into transport vehicles with the same or similar destinations.

Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search engine, which displays the same product's availability and pricing at different e-retailers. As of 2020, customers can shop online using a range of different computers and devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers and smartphones.

A refrigerator car is a refrigerated boxcar (U.S.), a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars, neither of which are fitted with cooling apparatus. Reefers can be ice-cooled, come equipped with any one of a variety of mechanical refrigeration systems, or use carbon dioxide or liquid nitrogen as a cooling agent. Milk cars may or may not include a cooling system, but are equipped with high-speed trucks and other modifications that allow them to travel with passenger trains.

The Wayne Corporation was an American manufacturer of buses and other vehicles under the "Wayne" marque. The corporate headquarters were in Richmond, Indiana, in Wayne County, Indiana. During the middle 20th century, Wayne served as a leading producer of school buses in North America.

A tank car or tanker is a type of railroad car or rolling stock designed to transport liquid and gaseous commodities.

An electric truck is a battery electric vehicle (BEV) designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work.

A tank truck, gas truck, fuel truck, or tanker truck or tanker is a motor vehicle designed to carry liquids or gases on roads. The largest such vehicles are similar to railroad tank cars, which are also designed to carry liquid loads. Many variants exist due to the wide variety of liquids that can be transported. Tank trucks tend to be large; they may be insulated or non-insulated; pressurized or non-pressurized; and designed for single or multiple loads. Some are semi-trailer trucks. They are difficult to drive and highly susceptible to rollover due to their high center of gravity, and potentially the free surface effect of liquids sloshing in a partially filled tank.

An automated guided vehicle (AGV), different from an autonomous mobile robot (AMR), is a portable robot that follows along marked long lines or wires on the floor, or uses radio waves, vision cameras, magnets, or lasers for navigation. They are most often used in industrial applications to transport heavy materials around a large industrial building, such as a factory or warehouse. Application of the automatic guided vehicle broadened during the late 20th century.

Co-op is a UK supermarket chain and the brand used for the food retail business of The Co-operative Group, one of the world’s largest consumer co-operatives. As the UK’s fifth largest food retailer, Co-op operates nearly 2,400 food stores. It also supplies products to over 6,000 other stores, including those run by independent co-operative societies, through its wholesale business, Nisa Retail Limited.

A multi-stop truck is a type of commercial vehicle designed to make multiple deliveries or stops, with easy access to the transported cargo held in the rear. They first appeared in the United States in the 1920s. They are usually vans or trucks designed to be used as fleet vehicles by businesses within local areas.

In supply chain management and transportation planning, the last mile or last kilometer is the last leg of a journey comprising the movement of passengers and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination. The concept of "last mile" was adopted from the telecommunications industry, which faced difficulty connecting individual homes to the main telecommunications network. Similarly, in supply chain management, the last mile describes the logistical challenges at the last phase of transportation getting people and packages from hubs to their final destinations.

Urban freight distribution is the system and process by which goods are collected, transported, and distributed within urban environments. The urban freight system can include seaports, airports, manufacturing facilities, and warehouse/distribution centers that are connected by a network of railroads, rail yards, pipelines, highways, and roadways that enable goods to get to their destinations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delivery drone</span> Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used to transport packages, food or other goods

A delivery drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed to transport items such as packages, medicines, foods, postal mails, and other light goods. Large corporations like Amazon, DHL, and FedEx have started to use drone delivery services. Drones were used effectively in the fight against COVID-19, delivering millions of vaccines and medical supplies across the globe. Drone deliveries are highly efficient, significantly speeding up delivery times and avoiding challenges traditional delivery vehicles may encounter. Given their life-saving potential, use cases for medical supplies in particular have become the most widely tested type of drone delivery, with trials and pilot projects in dozens of countries such as Australia, Canada, Botswana, Ghana, Uganda, the UK, the US among others.

References

↑ Nishio, S.; Kishino, F. (2003). Advanced Multimedia Content Processing: First International Conference, AMCP'98, Osaka, Japan, November 9–11, 1998, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 196. ISBN 978-3-540-48962-7.
↑ Haig, M. (2006). Brand Royalty: How the World's Top 100 Brands Thrive & Survive. Kogan Page Series. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Kogan Page. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-7494-4826-4.
↑ Hill, C.W.L.; Jones, G.R.; Schilling, M.A. (2014). Strategic Management: Theory & Cases: An Integrated Approach. Cengage Learning. p. 3-PA59. ISBN 978-1-305-14272-5.
↑ "Electric Milk Trucks Still Working in Jolly Old England". TreeHugger. Archived from the original on 14 April 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2020.
↑ Murphy, Mike (19 September 2019). "Alphabet is partnering with FedEx and Walgreens to bring drone delivery to the US". Quartz. Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
1 2 Golden, Bruce L.; Raghavan, S.; Wasil, Edward A. (2008). The Vehicle Routing Problem: Latest Advances and New Challenges. Operations Research/Computer Science Interfaces Series. New York London: Springer US. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-387-77778-8.
↑ Herzog, Lawrence (11 March 2010). "The days of door-to-door delivery". Edmonton Real Estate Weekly: It's Our Heritage. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012.
↑ "Infofile Detail – Milk Delivery". Edmonton Public Library. Archived from the original on 29 August 2012.

External links

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[Nishio_Kishino_2003-1] Nishio, S.; Kishino, F. (2003). Advanced Multimedia Content Processing: First International Conference, AMCP'98, Osaka, Japan, November 9–11, 1998, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 196. ISBN 978-3-540-48962-7.

[Haig_2006-2] Haig, M. (2006). Brand Royalty: How the World's Top 100 Brands Thrive & Survive. Kogan Page Series. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Kogan Page. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-7494-4826-4.

[Hill_Jones_Schilling_2014-3] Hill, C.W.L.; Jones, G.R.; Schilling, M.A. (2014). Strategic Management: Theory & Cases: An Integrated Approach. Cengage Learning. p. 3-PA59. ISBN 978-1-305-14272-5.

[4] "Electric Milk Trucks Still Working in Jolly Old England". TreeHugger. Archived from the original on 14 April 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2020.

[5] Murphy, Mike (19 September 2019). "Alphabet is partnering with FedEx and Walgreens to bring drone delivery to the US". Quartz. Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved 24 August 2020.

[Golden_Raghavan_Wasil_2008-6] 1 2 Golden, Bruce L.; Raghavan, S.; Wasil, Edward A. (2008). The Vehicle Routing Problem: Latest Advances and New Challenges. Operations Research/Computer Science Interfaces Series. New York London: Springer US. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-387-77778-8.

[7] Herzog, Lawrence (11 March 2010). "The days of door-to-door delivery". Edmonton Real Estate Weekly: It's Our Heritage. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012.

[8] "Infofile Detail – Milk Delivery". Edmonton Public Library. Archived from the original on 29 August 2012.

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