This is not a sensational prediction, it’s what the market is beginning to reveal. A few days ago, I came across a LinkedIn promotional post by a major D2C last-mile aggregator. What caught my attention wasn’t the post itself, but the flood of critical comments to it, many of which came from people who actually work with/lead D2C brands. Those reactions made me pause and dig deeper into what’s upsetting the ecosystem, especially when these platforms claim to be driving growth in the D2C last-mile space. After looking closely at recent patterns, I can see why the sentiment is shifting.
Visibility and accessibility: no longer a “value-add”
The last-mile aggregation segment grew quickly because it solved two very basic pain points for brands; it made courier visibility easier and allowed brands to access a wider delivery network without doing all the integrations themselves. Early players who stitched various couriers together and simplified the process understandably gained momentum. This opened the floodgates for more entrants, some with geographic focus, some with niche tech, others just following the trend.
But what used to be considered as “innovation” has now become the bare minimum. Brands expect visibility, they expect easy courier access and these aren’t differentiators anymore; they’re the price of entry. Yet many aggregators still sell the same features, more couriers, more pincodes, cheaper rates. That may have worked in last couple of years, but brands today want something deeper.
Started as tech companies, turning into margin-driven aggregators
Most aggregators positioned themselves as tech-first businesses when they launched. Their technology did play a part in enabling the early phase of adoption. But the same technology that once set them apart has now become standard across the board. The competitive advantage has evaporated, and what remains is a race to squeeze revenue out of aggregation.
It’s not hard to understand why. The revenue per shipment earned through aggregation is much higher than what tech subscriptions bring in, while the effort required to build meaningful and deeper technology is significantly heavier. As a result, many players are drifting toward whatever brings in quicker, larger margins.
This is where neutral decision-making gets compromised. Instead of recommending couriers based on performance or suitability for a shipment, some aggregators prioritize the ones that give them the best margins. This directly affects delivery quality. And in some cases, the issue goes beyond that, there are customer reports of manipulated weights, questionable zone assignments, and COD discrepancies. That kind of behaviour naturally fuels frustration, which explains the angry comments I mentioned above.
A pattern from the past resurfacing
If you look back at how the courier franchise model evolved decades ago, there’s an interesting parallel. At one point, you could find courier signboards outside thousands of tiny shops in commercial streets. Many shopkeepers even shut their main businesses to become full-time courier franchisees. The model boomed until courier companies expanded their own networks, making the middle layer less essential.
Today’s aggregators are essentially the digital equivalent of those franchises. The shop-fronts have become dashboards; manual processing has turned into APIs. But the underlying role hasn’t changed: they sit between small shippers and big carriers, offering convenience, reach, and better pricing. What hasn’t changed either is that the actual service quality, pickup reliability, transit time, delivery performance, RTO handling still lies entirely with the courier.
So, aggregators today are almost exactly where courier franchisees stood 20 years ago:
- They control volume,
- They provide easy access,
- But they’re inching toward becoming interchangeable.
They look like tech companies on the surface, but underneath, many operate like updated versions of the old co-loader or franchise networks.
The bigger question is how long can this model hold?
History shows that whenever access becomes universal, the middle layer must evolve or it eventually disappears. With the number of aggregators increasing rapidly, some even rebranding old logistics businesses with a trendy “This-ship, That-ship, X-ship etc” name and plugging into a white-labelled platform, the space is overcrowding. And the core technology most of them rely on has become basic hygiene.
As brands grow and seek more control over their last mile, their dependence on aggregators will reduce unless these aggregators move upward in the value chain. Unfortunately, many players don’t seem be even clear about what “moving up the value chain” means.
The emerging reality is if they don’t evolve soon, many will face a tough road ahead, not because demand is shrinking (it’s actually growing at a healthy pace), but because the part of the layer they occupy won’t stay relevant for much longer. For several of them, the tipping point may come sooner than expected, possibly within the next couple of years.
What are your thoughts?
