Last-Mile Delivery: The Hidden Costs of Poor Reliability | FreightWaves Today

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6}#fwtv_ihtPwK0L7HQ. fwtv-panel p{margin:0 0 12px}#fwtv_ihtPwK0L7HQ. fwtv-transcript p{margin:0 0 12px}SummaryView TranscriptLast-mile delivery is more complex than ever, and consumer expectations are rapidly evolving.

Jake Stein, VP of Retail Growth at Burq and former Uber Direct leader, explains why reliability is now more important than speed for customer satisfaction.

Discover how retailers can leverage hybrid models and AI-enabled platforms to meet these shifting demands, optimize costs, and expand their delivery reach across various sectors like grocery, pharmacy, and more.

Delivery reliability has surpassed speed as the second-most important factor for consumers choosing a shipping option, trailing only price, according to Jake Stein, Vice President of Retail Growth at Berk, an AI-enabled last-mile platform.

Stein cited McKinsey research showing that speed, once ranked second, has fallen to roughly fifth place in consumer delivery priorities — a shift he said carries direct consequences for retailers that have not yet diversified their carrier networks.

The finding matters for shippers, brokers, and carriers because it reframes where last-mile investment delivers the highest return. Rather than bidding on faster windows, Stein argued, merchants stand to gain more by guaranteeing that a stated delivery promise — even a two-day window — is actually met. “It used to be, you know, price then speed,” Stein said.

“Now speed is down about number 5, and reliability or accuracy of the delivery is number 2 after price.” “If you’re paying a lot for a specific speed delivery and it doesn’t go well, you’re a lot more disappointed than if it’s perhaps free and doesn’t go well.”

Stein, who previously worked at Uber Direct, said the experience there showed him that even a platform with strong global supply and heavy U. S. and Canada presence leaves gaps for individual retailers.

His case for a multi-provider, or hybrid, model rests on three pressure points: supply shortfalls from a single vendor, system outages, and performance degradation. Connecting via API to dozens of providers, he said, forces the primary carrier to compete on cost and flexibility while giving merchants a fallback network.

Delivery choice is also a conversion lever, Stein said. Retailers that show only standard or next-day shipping risk cart abandonment from shoppers who want same-day, a two-hour window for high-value items requiring proof of delivery or a PIN code, or simply want to match their purchase urgency to a service level they trust.

“If the retailer doesn’t offer all of those particular shipping options in that particular buying experience, they’re going to go somewhere else,” he said.

For retailers looking to rethink their delivery strategy, Stein recommended starting with behavioral data — tracking whether customers are drilling into shipping-options pages, selecting faster tiers, or abandoning carts entirely.

A platform layer that surfaces those signals can identify, for example, that a specific customer abandoned checkout because a desired service level was not offered, giving merchants a data-backed case for adding it to their e-commerce or app experience. On autonomous and drone delivery, Stein was measured.

He said drones will eventually create meaningful cost advantages — citing prescription drop-offs as one near-term use case — but that regulatory hurdles around airspace control will slow adoption.

Autonomous ground vehicles face a different challenge: most current deployments still require the customer to retrieve the package from the vehicle rather than receiving a doorstep delivery, which he said falls short of what consumers are actually paying for in convenience-driven last-mile services.

McKinsey data cited by Berk’s Jake Stein shows delivery speed has fallen from No. 2 to roughly No. 5 in consumer priorities, with reliability now ranked second only to price. Berk’s multi-provider, API-connected hybrid model lets retailers tap dozens of carriers to fill supply gaps, drive cost competition, and meet varied service-level demands.

Stein says drone delivery will arrive but take time due to airspace regulation, while autonomous