Why big and bulky delivery is the final frontier for retail supply chains

In March, The Home Depot announced that by the end of Q1, customers would be able to track “big and bulky orders” in real time, the company said in a statement. The feature would help improve what Dee Walk, Home Depot’s SVP of enterprise delivery, called a “persistent blind spot” for retailers trying to deliver building materials to professional customers.

The home improvement chain has invested heavily in expanding same-day and next-day deliveries to more customers and more items, and it has seen significant benefits as a result. In 2025, more than 55% of in-stock SKUs were available for same- or next-day delivery, triple the 2022 rate, and those gains didn’t come easy. Since 2017, Home Depot has built out a massive, multilayered supply chain and fulfillment network with nearly 200 last-mile assets.

The company now claims to have achieved the fastest delivery speeds in its history through a combination of shipping from the best location and a proprietary algorithm that optimizes deliveries across its network, per its annual report.

However, when it comes to large, non-parcelized items, such as concrete and lumber, Home Depot is still in building mode. The company recently submitted a proposal for a 414,000-square-foot distribution center on Long Island that would specialize in same- and next-day delivery for big and bulky building materials.

What Home Depot is taking on with the buildout of these facilities is arguably one of the biggest challenges in retail logistics. While parcel delivery is getting faster and more automated, big and bulky orders remain a complicated, high-touch service that is currently dominated by third-party logistics providers (3PLs).

Complex and costly: “The final-mile bulky goods delivery network is far more complex than any other part of the supply chain,” William D. Lecos, executive director of National Home Delivery Association, told Retail Brew. “It’s the most costly. It’s the most complex. And when it works well, it’s the most invisible.”

The process is invisible, Lecos explained, in the sense that many customers don’t realize retailers didn’t deliver the product, but rather a third party that specializes in handling and installing large items. These third-party carriers currently deliver 90% of big and bulky goods, he added, with the other 10% mostly made up of legacy brands that have been offering delivery as a service since their beginnings.

There are several reasons many retailers don’t handle this service in-house, according to Lecos. One is that items are almost always delivered in a box truck rather than a van or car. They also require trained delivery people to handle them properly and are generally scheduled deliveries that have to be coordinated with the customer. “Every transaction involves going into somebody’s home,” he said. “Very few big and bulky deliveries are doorstep deliveries.”

An additional challenge is that large items are “too space-consuming to stock deep in every store,” Cheri Grabowski, manager of marketing and projects at Armstrong & Associates, a consulting and research firm in the logistics industry, wrote in an email to Retail Brew. As a result, retailers historically defaulted to offering a delivery window of 5–9 days for items not already on shelves at stores.

Filling the gaps: To address these challenges, Grabowski said the solution is building “an entirely new layer of supply chain real estate,” including “cross-docks, flatbed distribution centers, and forward market delivery operations”—along the lines of what Home Depot is accomplishing.

Home Depot has made “strong, measurable progress” with the buildout of its supply chain, and yet, Grabowski noted, it might not be possible to completely cut out 3PLs if the goal is both same- and next-day delivery and bringing the service to every geography, including rural areas.

“It’s just not feasible,” she said.