Peak season is nearly here, and whether you’re delivering home decor and fitness equipment or big screen TVs and other electronics, you know that oversized goods can be a real cost center. After all, they often require specialized handling equipment, take up more warehouse space and provoke unwanted delivery surcharges like dimensional weight fees. Shipping oversized goods can be a hassle — a 2024 survey conducted by Roadie and Supply Chain Dive’s studioID found that more than a third of businesses have even opted to restrict delivery for certain oversized items. 

But there is a logistics solution that can give your business a proverbial leg up when it comes to mastering peak season 2025: on-demand delivery. With no hidden fees or surcharges, flexible delivery options and a national network that reaches up to 97% of U.S. households, Roadie can help you get more with delivery of oversized orders — all while delivering at a speed that keeps your customers satisfied. 

Scaling to meet peak season surges

The big and bulky last-mile delivery market is growing at 11.8% annually through 2025, driven largely by rising ecommerce sales of household items. You don’t have to be a home goods retailer, though, to know that peak season requires a perfectly coordinated effort, particularly as economic uncertainty and shifting consumer sentiments make it difficult to predict exactly what challenges the year-end holiday will bring. The highly scalable nature of the on-demand Roadie model means you can support heightened demand by enabling same‑day delivery for even the bulkiest of items, bolstered by real-time tracking and dynamic route optimization. 

Shortening delivery timelines with cross-docking 

You’ve spent substantial resources to expand your warehouse network and place inventory closer to your customers. Why not leverage that network for same-day delivery of big and bulky items? The RoadieXD™ cross-docking solution involves sending trailers of same-day orders to Roadie cross-docks where they’re transferred from inbound truckload shipment to crowdsourced outbound vehicles for same-day delivery to any destination within 100 miles of the cross-dock. These expedited delivery times and reduced touchpoints also help reduce the risk of damage during transit, which is especially important for oversized items that often feature a higher-than-average price tag. 

Mastering the “misfits” 

Big and bulky items have always been a conundrum for the carrier world — even if they aren’t heavy. Even lightweight items like air filters incur dimensional weight charges, unnecessary packaging requirements and carrier restrictions can quickly impede the final-mile fulfillment of heavy, bulky and awkward items. Roadie enables your business to get those oversized, often-awkward packages where they need to go, while eliminating many of the hassles associated with oversized delivery using traditional couriers and carriers. This solution gives your business the ability to deliver items up to 12 feet long and 200 pounds. And with Roadie, a driver with the right vehicle will be matched and will deliver items according to any special handling requirements — no packaging required.

Roadie has two main products for large and oversized deliveries, Roadie Same Day® and RoadieXD™. The best option is based on your pick-up volume, pick-up location and delivery speed. And when it makes sense to do so, combine them both to maximize efficiency for your big and bulky deliveries.

Controlling costs … and chain of custody

Transparent rates and simple fee structures simplify the big and bulky aspect of delivery on the retail side, with no order cut-off times, even during the peak season rush. Additionally, real-time tracking built directly into the Roadie platform allows you and the customer to know the order's location at all times. And if a problem develops, retailers get 24/7 support, empowering them to consistently deliver a seamless and satisfying customer experience. In the post-peak period, reverse logistics support from Roadie allows you to provide customers with the flexibility to easily return items as needed. Instead of requiring the customer to mail back an item or take it to a drop-off location, a Roadie driver shows up at their doorstep to accept those oversized return goods. 

Backed by intuitive technology and an innovative, problem-solving approach to logistics, Roadie is set to power your last-mile strategy with fast, cost-effective delivery, helping you wow customers and drive repeat business.