Last-Mile Orchestration Fills the Gap as Carriers Diversify

The last-mile delivery landscape is fragmenting. National carriers like FedEx and UPS have spent a decade shedding unprofitable packages, creating space for regional carriers, 3PLs, gig platforms, and private fleets. According to FreightWaves data cited in this article, 55% of retailers now use carriers outside the traditional duopoly, and more than a third are actively moving volume away. However, this diversification has created a coordination problem: none of these networks talk to each other.

Burq, a last-mile technology company, is betting that the real value lies in the **decision layer above the fragmented network**—a sophisticated orchestration engine that can route each package to the carrier most likely to meet service levels at the lowest cost. The company hired Jake Stein from Uber Direct to lead retail growth, and his vision reveals the core problem: retailers have no visibility into which carrier performs in which ZIP code on which day. This information gap costs money. One example: Caraway, a home goods brand, cut total parcel costs by 20% after its 3PL began shopping every order across a diversified network.

The payoff is real, but it requires decision-making tools faster than legacy dispatch systems can provide. For supply chain professionals, this represents a structural shift in how parcel economics work. The complexity of managing multiple carriers—each with different SLAs, capacity commitments, and service profiles—has become too much for human-driven dispatch. Real-time optimization, powered by machine learning and integrated data, is moving from nice-to-have to table-stakes for retailers competing on both cost and customer experience.