The Last Mile project has it’s focus at the market of parcel delivery. And to be exact, the delivery to the end consumer. The world of parcel delivery is changing, due to marketplaces but also because of changes in legislation and regulations. GS1 in Europe must stay involved.

Marketplaces are creating truly global supply chains for both B2C and B2B (consumer electronics, spare parts, technical industries) that will (partly) replace existing local ones. Furthermore they are providing Supply Chain/Logistics services to sellers on their platform. For incoming goods they are working more and more with GS1 SSCC, but they are still using carrier specific codes for out bound parcels.

The EU has mandated CEN to set open standards to link customs declaration processes into cross border supply chains to enable VAT collection for Low Value Consignments and protect EU businesses and consumers (to be operational by end of 2020!). Local authorities implement regulations that stimulate carriers to work together to enable deliveries with a lower environmental foot print (city hubs)

GS1 in Europe should get involved to protect the investment of our existing members in implementing the SSCC to facilitate they logistic processes:

• There are 10 times more low value consignments than parcels that go today through customs declarations process.
• Enable our customers to use seamlessly both the traditional retailer distribution network as the parcel delivery network and keep control over their deliveries themselves.
• Add new members to our community such as online resellers and carriers. There are more than 5.000.000.000 parcels to be identified each year.

The objectives for the last mile project within GS1 in Europe are:

• Make sure that GS1 Standards can be used for all logistic processes including transport in all modes wherever in the supply chain (live up to the GS1 promise)
• Implement SSCC as parcel identification
• Get new members for GS1

This can be achieved by building and maintaining the relevant standards within CEN to facilitate the use of GS1 identifiers, intensify Industry engagement and start pilot projects and finally promoting the use of GS1 standards in e-commerce sector (Marketplaces, online shops) and within the transport & logistics sector (mainly courier and fulfilment companies).

The project is lead by Frits van den Bos (GS1 Netherlands) and Agata Horzela (GS1 Poland).