JLL Launches Last-Mile Consultancy Business in US
By Lauren Elkies Schram November 17, 2018 9:43 pm
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In a retail climate where online shoppers expect to receive their purchases the same day they made them, JLL decided to create a consultancy group to help urban retailers achieve just that, Commercial Observer has learned.
While at the annual three-day MAPIC international retail real estate conference in Cannes, France, Naveen Jaggi, the president of retail advisory and capital markets at JLL, told CO that JLL now has an urban last-mile business in the U.S.
Online shoppers, Jaggi said, “are conditioned” to get their goods the same day. He added that e-commerce retailers are not “good with being distribution specialists,” so that’s where JLL’s experts come in.
There are about 10 people in what JLL calls its urban infill business, spread around the nation. “These are virtual guys,” Jaggi said.
Heading up the initiative is Craig Meyer, the president of Americas industrial for JLL based in Los Angeles, and Richard Thompson, a global leader of supply chain and logistics solutions who is a consultant for JLL based in Chicago.
“As e-commerce and omnichannel sales continue to grow, so does consumer demand for one-day and same-day delivery,” Meyer said in prepared remarks. “With online sales expected to double over the next decade, retailers cannot rely on traditional distribution centers that often sit 60 to 80 miles from a dense urban core.”
The “company-sponsored endeavor” is “still in the incubation period,” Jaggi said, and may in time expand globally.
Meyer added: “There are myriad variables at play when considering urban infill options in densely populated areas, and it’s imperative that companies find creative last-mile solutions.”
