A Review of Last-Mile Delivery in Nigeria's Logistics Sector: Challenges, Cost, and Innovation Implications for Supply Chain Management

Abstract

This paper reviews challenges and innovative solutions in Nigeria's last-mile delivery sector, with attention to their cost, profitability, and operational performance implications. We adopted the narrative review methodology, synthesizing peer-reviewed academic literature grounded in supply chain resilience theory, the resource-based view (RBV), and Rogers' innovation diffusion theory. Sources are drawn from peer-reviewed and indexed journals published between 2009 and 2026. We found five structural challenge domains such as infrastructural deficiencies, addressing and mapping failures, urban congestion, macroeconomic pressures, and workforce and regulatory inadequacies, constituting a chronic systemic disruption environment. Five innovative responses are examined: digital mapping, mobile platforms, route optimization, local delivery network partnerships, and emerging technologies. This paper provides an integrated conceptual framework linking challenges, theoretical foundations, innovations, and firm/policy outcomes. The paper argues that innovation diffusion paradox is a bounded theoretical construct distinct from Rogers' general diffusion barriers, with explicit applicability beyond logistics to other infrastructure-constrained emerging-market innovation contexts.