Shopify partners with logistics providers to unlock last-mile delivery

Recently, Shopify announced a partnership with French logistics company Urb-it. Merchants on the Shopify platform can use the transportation services provided by Urb-it to complete the last mile of item delivery.

It is reported that Urb-it operates a bicycle freight fleet and is a last-mile delivery company that is expanding its business in Europe. Currently, Urb-it has operations in the UK, France and Spain, and Urb-it said it will soon expand to Germany, Italy, Portugal and other places.

After the partnership with Urb-it, Urb-it's customized delivery application can be used on the Shopify Marketplace. Merchants on the Shopify platform only need to click Urb-it in the delivery options to deliver goods to customers in many major cities in Europe through Urb-it.

It is understood that Urb-it was founded in 2014 and is a fast-growing sustainable logistics platform that specializes in providing urban logistics services, one delivery at a time. Its fleet of bicycles for delivery has a positive impact on reducing emissions, easing traffic congestion and noise pollution. So far, Urb-it has provided the last mile for more than 4 million British citizens.

Shopify is recognized as the second largest e-commerce platform in the United States. Faced with the rise of new e-commerce companies, Shopify is now in a situation where it is facing fierce competition from the front and pursued from the back. In addition, in the second quarter of this year, Shopify suffered a huge loss of 41.8 million US dollars. Finding growth points may become Shopify's top priority in the second half of the year.

For Shopify, logistics is one of its expected core selling points. In May this year, Shopify completed the acquisition of local logistics provider Deliverr for US$2.1 billion. The most significant effect brought by Deliverr is that in addition to the original warehousing and logistics services, delivery within two days will retain consumers to the greatest extent from the logistics perspective. Now, in order to further improve its own logistics advantages, Shopify has chosen to cooperate with Urb-it to achieve last-mile delivery.

In fact, product delivery time is indeed a major factor affecting consumers' purchasing decisions, so many e-commerce companies are also making efforts in logistics. In addition to Shopify, e-commerce giants such as Alibaba, Amazon, and Walmart have already started last-mile services.

According to Urb-it's second quarter financial report, Alibaba and Amazon chose Urb-it as the last-mile service company, which contributed the majority of Urb-it's sales. In addition, Walmart also started investing in the service provider DroneUp a year ago, with the aim of accelerating the implementation of last-mile delivery services.

It can be seen from this that e-commerce platforms have gradually entered into a state of internal competition in logistics, requiring faster logistics time and more favorable prices, which may not be a bad thing for sellers.

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The Last Mile