Egypt’s logistics stack looks solid on paper. Ports have expanded, customs procedures have improved, and warehouse capacity has grown rapidly alongside e-commerce. But the system still often breaks down just before the doorstep. The last mile — the final handoff from courier to customer — remains one of Egypt’s most expensive and unreliable legs of the delivery process. And for e-commerce platforms and couriers, it is where margins go to die.

The structural drag on deliveries

“The last mile is notoriously difficult in Egypt,” Pargo Egypt Senior Operations Manager Adham Elmolla tells EnterpriseAM. He pointed to vague addresses, dense traffic, and customers who are rarely home during delivery windows. The result, he says, is a cycle of missed deliveries, repeated attempts, and constant phone coordination between couriers and customers — something we think all our readers have had more than enough experience with.

Informal housing compounds the issue. Without reliable addressing, drivers depend on landmarks and live directions — adding time and fuel costs to every drop-off. In gated communities, security procedures often prevent drivers from entering freely, creating further delays. Each failed delivery attempt adds direct costs for couriers and indirect costs for retailers, from customer complaints to returns and lost trust.

The pivot away from the front door

To break that cycle, some logistics players are abandoning home delivery altogether. One approach comes from Imbox, which installs automated smart lockers that act as shared pickup and drop-off points. Instead of shipping to a home address, customers select a nearby locker during checkout. “We are solving the last-mile delivery bottleneck,” IMbox founder and CEO Ayman Hendawy tells EnterpriseAM. The core problem, he explains, is failed delivery attempts. “For logistics companies, those failures are a major cost driver. For customers, they are a constant source of frustration,” he adds.

Once a courier deposits a parcel, the customer receives a QR code and can collect it at any time. Hendawy says Imbox lockers are currently installed in malls, gas stations, gated communities, and transport hubs — locations designed to fit naturally into daily routines. “For logistics firms, this replaces brick-and-mortar offices with automated stations,” Hendawy says, adding that local manufacturing allows Imbox to customize and scale faster than imported locker systems.

He also frames lockers as a sustainability play. By consolidating multiple home deliveries into a single drop-off point, Hendawy says Imbox cuts courier mileage, fuel consumption, and CO2 emissions — turning last-mile efficiency into a way to make the sector more environmentally sustainable.

Click-and-collect via neighborhood shops

Pargo is tackling the same problem from a different angle — delivering parcels to neighborhood shops instead of lockers or homes.

“The idea is to decouple the courier from the customer,” Elmolla explains. Couriers deliver to a verified business location — a Pargo Point — ensuring first-time delivery success. Customers then collect their parcels at their convenience, using a one-time PIN sent via SMS, email, or WhatsApp.

Pargo’s network includes convenience chains, fintech hubs, and local retailers. For shop owners, Elmolla says, the value goes beyond logistics. “Thirty to fifty percent of customers who come in to collect a parcel end up making a purchase,” he says, turning delivery into a footfall driver rather than a disruption.

What’s working — and what’s holding things back

Both models share the same advantage of consolidation. Delivering dozens of parcels to one location is cheaper, faster, and more predictable than door-to-door delivery. But scaling in Egypt comes with unique constraints.

Hendawy says Imbox’s biggest challenge has been market education. “Smart lockers are standard in Europe and the GCC, but they are still new to the Egyptian market,” he says. Convincing retailers, property managers, and developers that shared delivery infrastructure is essential — not optional — takes time.

Elmolla points to payment behavior as a critical barrier. “When we launched in Egypt, the reliance on [paper payments] was a challenge we hadn’t seen in other markets,” he says. Pargo responded by building a pay-on-collection option, allowing customers to pay with banknotes at pickup points — a move Elmolla describes as the missing link to mass-market adoption.

What Egypt can learn from other markets

In Europe and the GCC, lockers and pickup points expanded quickly thanks to clear addressing systems, automation, and cooperation between municipalities, property developers, and logistics operators. Hendawy argues similar coordination is needed locally. He says government support — particularly streamlined permits for installing lockers in public spaces — would accelerate adoption and encourage large e-commerce platforms to integrate alternative delivery models.

The big picture

Egypt’s last-mile problem is no longer about infrastructure at ports or warehouses; it is about micro-infrastructure in neighborhoods — and whether consumers are willing to stop expecting parcels at their doors. “With a 100% success rate on first-time delivery, the logic is hard to ignore,” Elmolla says. The question is whether lockers and pickup points remain niche solutions — or become the default way Egypt finally cracks its hardest mile.

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