Retailers that still view delivery as a back-end logistics function risk falling behind in the competitive age of AI-assisted shopping and rising consumer expectations around delivery.  

According to Sophia Pope, senior director and GM Apac with ShipStation, retailers who use real-time data and AI – the intelligence behind fulfilment – to turn delivery into a growth engine will gain a significant competitive advantage.

Pope urges the industry to abandon its reactive approach to shipping and customer service in favour of what she calls “intelligent delivery” – a fundamental reimagining of how retailers manage the post-purchase experience.

Speaking to Amie Larter of Inside Retail on the latest episode of the podcast series Retail Untangled, Pope describes intelligent delivery as “like a mindset shift” in which retailers stop treating fulfilment as a cost centre. Rather, they should focus on solving last-mile delivery problems to improve the customer experience.

“Intelligent delivery is flipping that [fulfilment] model. It is turning shipping operations into a proactive and data-driven growth engine,” she says.

For many online retailers, delivery issues still trigger a reactive, fragmented approach. A consumer contacts customer service about a missing order. The service team checks with the warehouse, which then contacts the carrier to track the parcel. Meanwhile, the customer waits for answers, disappointed with the shopping experience and left in the dark as to when they will receive their order.

Pope believes that the model is becoming obsolete. Today’s customer service teams should begin the day with immediate visibility over delayed orders, allowing them to proactively contact affected customers before complaints are lodged – acknowledge the delay, apologise and offer compensation, such as a 5 per cent discount on a future purchase.

Retailers that continue to treat fulfilment as a simple exercise in moving a box from A to B risk being squeezed out of the market, Pope warns.

The retailers that will outperform are those that understand that delivery is now central to the customer experience, brand trust, and retention, she says. That means investing in live, accurate data, adapting to rapid advances in AI and ensuring fulfilment is treated as a critical part of the customer relationship, rather than an operational afterthought.

The gap between customer expectation and experience is huge, says Pope, stressing the importance of understanding where those expectations have come from.  

“We all know that these days we have an attention span of about three seconds, particularly as AI is becoming more prevalent in our everyday lives. We want things done now. We want parcels delivered quickly. That is the whole Amazon effect. ‘I ordered something last night, it’s going to arrive today. Why can’t other people do that?’ And that has unfortunately been pushed onto normal retailers, which is really difficult.” 

Given that ShipStation’s latest Benchmark Report shows 73 per cent of consumers will not return to a brand after a poor delivery experience, retailers need to look at the entire fulfilment process to avoid losing customers, says Pope. 

“If you are simply being reactive when issues arise instead of being proactive, or carriers are losing parcels and you’re not on top of it, then you are not going to get that repeat business. How much is that costing you? A lot.”

Pope sees too many retailers spending money on their website experience, focusing on the top of the funnel, drawing customers in to browse and converting those browsers to buyers. But when it comes to shipping and fulfilment, those same retailers are not diving deep into the mechanics and efficiency that match the earlier customer experience. The customer experience doesn’t end at the checkout. In fact, from a delivery perspective, that experience is only just beginning.

Data can help identify where the business’s fulfilment bottlenecks are. For example, real-time inventory visibility should eliminate out-of-stocks. 

“I’m still seeing people who are working from spreadsheets for their inventory, verifying things manually, copying and pasting tracking details, all of which takes time. The processes in between are so manual and outdated that those inefficiencies are really blown out.

“Retailers need to meet 2026 expectations, but they’re still operating on a 2016 kind of fulfilment model, which is no longer good enough from a customer experience point of view.”

• Listen to the podcast to hear Pope explain how the advent of AI in complex searching is “terrifying” retailers, why a one-size-fits-all approach to returns will no longer work, and why having three to five delivery partners is now “the gold standard” in e-commerce fulfilment.