NEW DELHI: High demand owing to the festive season, workforce shortage and rising fuel prices are some issues that last-mile delivery operators are grappling with even as many of them are forced to go for an increase in the prices of their services.
Last-mile tech-logistics solution provider LetsTransport has seen the overall prices of their services increase by 6-8%. Pushkar Singh, CEO & Co-Founder of the company, tells The New Indian Express, fuel prices have increased around 30% compared to last year and it comprises close to 30-40% of overall logistics cost for secondary and tertiary movements.
“With every 10% increase in the fuel price, we have surged the service cost with some escalation,” says Prasad Sreeram, CEO & Co-Founder of COGOS. He adds that the fuel prices have increased the cost of services by more than 20%, however, “we are sharing the impact with the customer, rather than pushing all of it to them”.
Fuel prices rose across the country on Monday for 7th day in a row. There was no change in the prices on Tuesday. Khusnudh Khan- Co Founder and CEO, Arzooo, says the company’s newly launched Arzoo Express is dealing with similar issues. To recover the rising cost of shipment due to changes in fuel price, Khan says, “We have transitioned from a free delivery model to charging our B2B customers for shipping separately on top of each product price.”
While most logistics companies were ready to subsume the increased cost while the prices went up to 5-10%, with the hike having increased incrementally now, the need for negotiating with courier partners has arisen, according to Harsh Vaidya, Founder and CEO, WareIQ. Blue Dart Express also announced the average shipment price increase of 9.6% from January 1, 2022.
