By Retail Brew Staff
less than 3 min read
Definition:
Logistics is everything involved with getting an item to a consumer in a cost-effective way without the retailer losing its shirt, especially if the item is a shirt. This includes the panoply of sea-, air-, and land-bound transportation to get products from far-flung manufacturers to domestic warehouses and distribution centers, then to stores and to consumers. The last step of the retail journey when it comes to e-commerce, so called last-mile logistics, present a perennial challenge to the retail trade. Returns are logistics too, just in reverse, which is why they’re called—you’ll never guess—reverse logistics.
Origins of logistics: Once a term reserved for retail nerds, logistics dominated headlines during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and since. Every step in the logistical chain seemed to strain, including the supply chain bottlenecks in ports internationally and the difficulty in getting products to stores, resulting in empty shelves. Tariffs, which have been central to President Trump’s second term, have forced retail brands and retail stores to completely rethink their logistics to try to reduce tariff costs and impact.
Logistics in context: “If you’d thought this was the holiday season when retail’s returns’ headache would go away, you might want to keep the Advil close anyway,” we wrote in December 2025, noting that early Black Friday returns were up 12% over the previous year—bad news on the reverse-logistics front.
We also noted that, oddly enough, logistics were at the heart of the viral phenomenon of “boneless” couches. Unlike typical furniture, these all-foam sofas compress in boxes so small that many more can fit in cargo ships, and they can be delivered by parcel shippers like UPS, both huge logistical wins for furniture brands and retailers. “It’s not just the last mile where boneless couches are—literally and figuratively—shaping up to be game changers for the furniture industry,” we wrote. “It’s a radical change for the first mile, too.”
