E-Commerce Logistics: Last-Mile Delivery in Emerging Markets

Background to the Study

Global e-commerce has grown at a pace few analysts predicted a decade ago, and much of the most consequential growth is now happening not in mature Western markets but across the cities and peri-urban corridors of the developing world. Nigeria's e-commerce sector alone reached billions of dollars in gross merchandise value in recent years, driven by rising smartphone ownership, mobile money adoption, and a young, digitally engaged population. Platforms such as Jumia and Konga, alongside a fast-growing wave of social commerce vendors on WhatsApp and Instagram, have reshaped how millions of Nigerians shop.

Beneath this growth sits a structural constraint: logistics infrastructure has not kept pace with order volumes. Last-mile delivery — the final leg from a distribution hub to the customer's doorstep — is consistently the most expensive and operationally complex part of the e-commerce supply chain, often accounting for a disproportionate share of total delivery cost relative to the distance actually covered. In many Sub-Saharan African and South Asian cities, rapid urban expansion has outpaced road investment, informal settlements often lack standardised street addresses, and unreliable power supply disrupts both cold-chain logistics and the charging infrastructure that electric delivery fleets depend on.

Third-party logistics providers have stepped into this gap, offering e-commerce firms access to delivery networks and warehousing without the capital cost of building proprietary infrastructure. In Nigeria, firms such as GIG Logistics, Kwik Delivery, and Sendbox now serve both large platforms and small social commerce vendors. Independent benchmarking bodies such as the World Bank's Logistics Performance Index consistently show that lower-income economies face persistent connectivity gaps and unpredictability in trade and delivery logistics compared with wealthier markets, underscoring that Nigeria's experience is part of a broader emerging-market pattern rather than an isolated case.

Statement of the Problem

E-commerce growth in Nigeria and comparable emerging markets has created consumer expectations of fast, reliable, affordable delivery that current logistics infrastructure struggles to meet consistently, with a meaningful share of urban deliveries running well beyond promised delivery windows and contributing to elevated return rates on some platforms.

Three underlying problems drive this gap. First, the physical infrastructure deficit is severe: a large share of Nigeria's road network remains in poor condition according to the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, creating time and cost penalties that accumulate across thousands of daily deliveries. Second, the absence of a comprehensive national addressing system forces couriers to rely on landmarks and phone-based coordination with recipients, adding significant time to each delivery in dense urban neighbourhoods.

Third, although 3PL partnerships are widely adopted as a response to these challenges, the empirical evidence on their actual effectiveness in the Nigerian and broader African context is sparse and, at times, contradictory — some studies report strong positive effects on delivery speed and satisfaction, while others find that 3PL providers often reproduce rather than resolve the inefficiencies of in-house logistics. This gap in context-specific evidence leaves e-commerce operators, policymakers, and 3PL providers without a clear, shared understanding of which bottlenecks matter most and which partnership characteristics actually improve outcomes — the gap this study set out to close. Researchers designing a similarly structured survey instrument may find ScholarNestHub's guide to designing an effective research questionnaire a useful reference.

Aim and Objectives of the Study

The broad aim of this study is to examine e-commerce logistics and last-mile delivery challenges in emerging markets, focusing on delivery bottlenecks, infrastructure gaps, and 3PL partnerships. The specific objectives are to:

i.           identify and assess the major delivery bottlenecks affecting e-commerce logistics operations in emerging markets, with particular reference to Nigeria;

ii.         evaluate the nature and extent of infrastructure gaps contributing to last-mile delivery inefficiencies;

iii.       examine the role of 3PL partnerships in addressing last-mile delivery challenges in the Nigerian e-commerce ecosystem;

iv.       determine the relationship between infrastructure quality and e-commerce delivery performance;

v.         assess the influence of 3PL partnership adoption on customer satisfaction outcomes; and

vi.       recommend feasible policy and managerial strategies for improving e-commerce logistics outcomes in emerging markets.

Research Questions

The study was guided by the following questions:

•        What are the major delivery bottlenecks confronting e-commerce logistics operations in emerging markets?

•        What infrastructure gaps are most consequential in driving last-mile delivery inefficiencies in Nigerian e-commerce?

•        To what extent do 3PL partnerships contribute to improving last-mile delivery performance in the Nigerian e-commerce sector?

•        What is the relationship between infrastructure quality and e-commerce delivery performance in emerging markets?

•        How does 3PL partnership adoption influence customer satisfaction outcomes in e-commerce last-mile delivery?

Significance of the Study

This study offers value at several levels. Managerially, it gives e-commerce operators — particularly SMEs without the resources for proprietary logistics research — evidence-based guidance on which operational bottlenecks to prioritise, along with a practical decision framework for evaluating 3PL partnership models.

For 3PL providers, the findings surface the specific service gaps most visible to e-commerce clients and end customers, pointing toward the technological capabilities — real-time tracking, geolocation, delivery management platforms — that separate high-performing providers from the rest. For students working on comparable logistics, supply chain, or operations dissertations, this study offers a replicable structure to build from, and ScholarNestHub's academic writing and research support service is available for those who need hands-on help developing a similar project from scratch.

Policymakers at federal and state level in Nigeria, and in comparable developing economies, gain a concrete articulation of which logistics infrastructure investments would most directly benefit e-commerce development, contributing to the broader digital economy policy conversation.

Scope of the Study

The study is geographically scoped to Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria's two largest commercial cities, which together account for the majority of the country's e-commerce transaction volume. Thematically, it covers three interconnected domains — delivery bottlenecks, infrastructure gaps, and 3PL partnership dynamics — within business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce logistics, over the five-year window from 2020 to 2025, a period that captures both the COVID-19 disruption and the sector's subsequent structural adjustments.

While Nigeria is the primary empirical context, the study draws on comparative literature from Kenya, Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Brazil to situate its findings within a broader emerging-market framework. It does not cover cross-border e-commerce logistics, perishables-specific cold-chain logistics, or reverse logistics, though these remain important related areas for future research.

Operational Definition of Terms

E-Commerce: the buying and selling of goods and services through electronic platforms — websites, mobile apps, and social media channels — fulfilled through physical logistics networks.

Last-Mile Delivery: the final segment of a delivery journey from a distribution or fulfilment centre to the end consumer, covering all operations from outbound sortation at a hub to successful handover to the recipient.

Delivery Bottleneck: any structural, operational, or environmental factor that causes significant delays, failures, or cost escalation in last-mile delivery beyond what would be expected under efficient conditions.

Infrastructure Gap: a deficiency in physical or digital infrastructure — roads, addressing systems, power supply, telecommunications, warehousing — that impairs the efficiency, speed, or reliability of logistics operations.

Third-Party Logistics (3PL): an external service provider engaged by an e-commerce firm to manage some or all of its logistics operations — warehousing, transportation, last-mile delivery, returns processing — under a contractual arrangement.

Emerging Market: a national economy characterised by rapid economic growth, rising middle-class consumption, incomplete institutional development, and infrastructure gaps, typically found in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America; Nigeria is the primary representative case in this study.

Delivery Performance: a composite measure of the speed, accuracy, reliability, and cost-efficiency of last-mile delivery operations, as perceived by logistics operators and e-commerce customers.

Customer Satisfaction: the degree to which a consumer's delivery experience meets or exceeds pre-purchase expectations, covering timeliness, product condition, communication, and overall service quality.

Conclusion

Last-mile delivery remains the single hardest problem in emerging-market e-commerce, and this study's evidence from Lagos and Abuja confirms that infrastructure quality and the design of 3PL partnerships are the two factors doing the most to determine whether that final leg succeeds or fails. For operators, the message is practical: invest in addressing technology, choose 3PL partners on contractual clarity and technology integration rather than price alone, and consider hybrid delivery models where formal logistics networks fall short. For policymakers, logistics infrastructure deserves treatment as core digital economy infrastructure, not an afterthought. Students and researchers looking to extend this work can explore ScholarNestHub's full project topics repository for related studies in logistics, operations, and digital commerce.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is last-mile delivery and why is it so difficult in emerging markets?

Last-mile delivery is the final leg of a parcel's journey from a distribution hub to the customer's door. It is difficult in emerging markets because of poor road quality, informal addressing systems, and unreliable power supply, all of which slow delivery and raise costs.

2. What are the biggest e-commerce delivery bottlenecks in Nigeria?

This study found that poor road infrastructure, inadequate addressing systems, limited last-mile carrier capacity, and unreliable power supply were the most severe bottlenecks affecting e-commerce logistics in Lagos and Abuja.

3. Do 3PL partnerships actually improve delivery outcomes?

Yes, but with conditions. The study found that 3PL partnerships significantly improve delivery speed and geographic reach, though the benefit depends on contractual clarity, technology integration, and regulatory maturity.

4. What is a 3PL provider?

A third-party logistics (3PL) provider is an external company engaged to manage some or all of an e-commerce firm's logistics — warehousing, transportation, delivery, and returns — under a contract, rather than the firm building its own logistics network.

5. Which cities were studied in this research?

The study focused on Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria's two largest commercial cities, which together account for the majority of the country's e-commerce transaction volume.

6. How does poor addressing affect e-commerce delivery?

Without a comprehensive national addressing system, couriers must rely on landmarks and real-time phone coordination with customers, which adds significant time to each delivery, especially in dense urban neighbourhoods.

7. What research method did this study use?

A descriptive survey design was used, collecting data from 210 respondents across logistics companies, e-commerce firms, and consumers, analysed with descriptive statistics, frequency tables, and chi-square tests of independence.

8. Is Nigeria representative of other emerging markets?

The study uses Nigeria as its primary case but situates the findings within comparative literature from Kenya, Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Brazil, given shared patterns of infrastructure gaps across these emerging markets.

9. What solutions does the study recommend?

Recommendations include adopting geocoding and what3words-style addressing technologies, building hybrid delivery models combining 3PL partnerships with community-based agents, and advocating for public investment in rural road networks.

10. Does infrastructure quality really affect delivery performance statistically?

Yes. Hypothesis testing in this study confirmed a statistically significant relationship between infrastructure quality and e-commerce delivery performance, as well as between 3PL adoption and customer satisfaction outcomes.