Ever since E commerce retail started to boom  in India, their  major need was fulfilling  customer  to get  their order within very short span of time, thereby making online transactions a pleasant experience.   As a traditional transportation these small parcel’s consolidation and distribution happens along with other cargo goods and this delayed order fulfillment process.
In order to serve E commerce, CEP (courier Express and Parcel) segment created time specific delivery services and thus Ecom-Delivery Service Providers (ESP) came into picture. 
The main purpose of Ecom Logistics is making Customers around India can use the fast services and send their shipment anywhere in a very short time.
Gojavas, Ecom Express and Delhivery are some of the famous companies in India serving this segment of E commerce Retailers and EKart of Flipkart,ATS (Amazon Transportation Service) of Amazon catering their own business.  Basically Bikers are used in this business to effect the deliveries.  You can see many people wearing different colours of uniform moving around the city to deliver  small parcels which are up to 3 kgs.
Wheel of E com Logistics
  • First Mile
  • Line haul
  • Last Mile Delivery(LMD) and COD collection
  • Return to Origin (RTO)
  • Reverse Pickup (RVP)
First Mile
Ecom Delivery Service Provider will send their people to pick the shipments from Ecom Retailer like Jabong, Snap deal, Flip kart’s fulfilment centre or from their vendors.  Sometimes Ecom Retailer will send directly the shipments to the ESP’s Order Processing Centre (OPC). 
Here the received shipments processed by Barcode scanning, sorted as per the destination city and bagging with seal has been done.  Once this processing is done and bags will move to Airport/ Railway Station or loaded in Vehicles and move to their destination through the next process called- Line haul process.
Line Haul
Line haul means Movement of cargo/Parcels between two or more cities.  This can be done by various means and methods.
  • Movement of shipments from Origin to Destination directly (Direct Service Network -Point to point network – mostly used by  couriers)
  • Multi-stop Network ( Pickup and delivery points are linked in network-Milk run)
  • Hub and Spoke model – having connecting shipments to Centralized HUB and consolidation and distribution to nearest Delivery Centres (DC).
Co-Loaders – who has service agreement with Airlines; Railways are providing services to these ESPs.   Co-loaders responsibility ends once the shipments reached the destination (may be DC or Hub).
Last Mile Delivery and COD collection
The last mile is the last leg of shipment’s trip before it arrives on Ecom retailer’s customer’s doorstep.
Here at the Delivery Centre (DC)- again Barcode scanning is done and sorted as per the City Pin codes .   The shipments are collected by the Bikers which are associated with Pin codes and go for delivery.  
Android phones for updating Status of the shipment and SMS –before delivery and @ the time of Out For Delivery(OFD) and  Track and Trace -whole events right from Order despatch to Delivery created value addition to customers and made them to make repeated online transactions.
COD shipments- on delivery money are collected from the customers and the money is deposited to the Ecom Retailer’s account as per the agreed windows of time.  This process ends the Last Mile Delivery.
Return to Origin
The traditional shipment delivery process used to have 2 conditions either Delivered or Undelivered.  There is a third concept  called Return to Origin (RTO).    This is mainly happens due to customers (Receivers of Ecom companies)- rejecting the shipment received and asked for Money back.
As a process all the rejected / attempted but not delivered consumer goods being collected and send back to the Ecom Retailer’s fulfilment centres again and handed over to them.
Reverse Pickup (RVP)
This is a unique process associated with Ecom logistics where Ecom Retailers are having a policy called Return which is being used to make happy the end customers if he/she is not satisfied the products received.   Ecom Retailer’s Customer directly called or mailed the Customer Service (CS), and registers the product to be returned.
On processing their requests, Ecom Retailer provides data to ESPs to collect from the cities requested.  The requested orders are picked up and handed over to the Ecom Retailer.
Conclusion
Thus Ecom Logistics flourishes and ESPs keeps on updating their technology as a cutting edge to penetrate the market and in which whoever has the Best Technology and Operations wins the race.
 It is needless to say that Information Technology (Web services, Android phones, APP based applications, Automated Sorters, Auto Weighing Machines, SMS and IOTs) will give definite momentum in augmenting Ecom Logistics….