Women-centered models for last-mile distribution

Forty-three percent of the global population lives in rural areas, and delivering consumer products to the last mile can be a challenge for e-commerce providers. New business models and approaches can reduce costs and solve pain points for last-mile distributors. One that is showing promise, particularly in the energy and health sectors, is a women-centered approach that not only shows promise for empowering women sales agents, but also supports these agents to better connect with women customers, who make the majority of household purchasing decisions. For providers, this approach can lead to increased sales, a broader talent pool, a positive brand image, and the attraction of impact-focused investors for providers. Nevertheless, some providers struggle to incorporate women into their last-mile distribution strategies due to a lack of skills in targeting and convincing women or inconvenient delivery timing for them.

This insight brief aims to identify insights and best practices for e-commerce providers on women-centered distribution models for the last mile. It captures evidence and best practices from organizations facilitating women-led last-mile distribution (predominantly in the fast-moving consumer goods, health, and energy sectors) and insights from existing Mastercard Strive projects. As a living record of our learning, we will continue to update this brief as we learn more through our projects and partners. 

Proactively address mobility issues to enable women to succeed.

Evidence suggests that mobility—or lack thereof—is one of the main drivers of success for women entrepreneurs in last-mile distribution. Addressing mobility access and use will better support these women entrepreneurs. For example, in Nigeria, Solar Sister entrepreneurs with access to motorbikes outperformed entrepreneurs with access to other forms of transport, including those with access to a private car or bicycle. These entrepreneurs had average sales that were 60% higher than the sales of those using other forms of transportation. In Indonesia, the Wonder Women program found that those with access to a motorbike had double the amount of sales compared to those without. In Uganda, Wana Energy Solutions introduced motorbikes and drivers to support their women sales agents and saw a 41% increase in sales the following month.

Mobility considerations may include:

• Providing motorbikes or other transportation services and drivers to enable women agents to make customer deliveries.
• Partnering with rental organizations (motorbikes, bicycles, others) to facilitate streamlined access to transportation services.
• Offering a travel stipend to offset delivery costs for women entrepreneurs.

Providers considering women-centered distribution are encouraged to consider how they might improve the mobility of rural women entrepreneurs, as this may prove to be a significant barrier to their success. Another consideration is washroom access, particularly for women traveling farther to reach customers. For instance, one resource suggests forming agreements with apartment complexes or fuel stations to enable access to their washrooms for women sales agents. Providers can also consider whether this access might benefit (and be appropriate for) their rural women entrepreneurs. 

Consider profiles of successful women entrepreneurs at the last mile.

Beyond mobility, existing research identifies similarities between successful women entrepreneurs that could be considered as part of a provider’s recruitment parameters:

• Generally, women entrepreneurs are known and trusted in their communities and are part of social networks, with previous working or community experience. For example, an analysis of high-performing women selling energy products in Indonesia (known as “Wonder Women”) found that 78% of the entrepreneurs used their existing social networks due to their involvement in NGOs, as teachers, and as public servants. Additionally, an analysis of Solar Sister by MIT found that rural customers were more likely to prefer a salesperson who could offer local assistance and who was known and trusted by the customer.
• Women entrepreneurs are often married, with children who are old enough that women can leave the home for a few hours each day. For example, FanMilk Nigeria reported that their best-selling female sales agents are all above 30 years old and married with children.
• Spousal and family support (as well as community support) is an essential factor for success. In Indonesia, successful Wonder Women include their husbands in their business. 
• Research also found that previous experience in sales or business ownership does not ensure a higher success rate for women entrepreneurs, nor does their level of education. 

Additionally, engaging with local women’s networks to support recruitment efforts can be beneficial, as research identifies these networks as advantageous for identifying and recruiting qualified women entrepreneurs. 

Raise awareness with spouses, families, and communities to gain acceptance and support.

Research has found that, generally, women entrepreneurs are more successful if their spouses and other household members are in support of their entrepreneurial activities. Similarly, in more conservative contexts, women entrepreneurs may be expected to consult or seek approval from spouses on business decisions. Resistance from spouses, family members, and the wider community can negatively affect whether women apply and stay in roles. 

Engaging family members to gain acceptance and support can be valuable in driving women-centered models forward. For example, one resource identifies two ways this could be achieved: an online campaign featuring testimonials from women agents and sharing collateral that women can share with family members via SMS or WhatsApp. In Kenya, rural distributor Bidhaa Sasa offers ongoing support to spouses of women agents, conducting regular events that help spouses understand the content of their wives’ work and business relationships. Buy-in from political or community leaders may also be necessary and advantageous. For example, in Pakistan, social enterprise Greenstar leverages community elders to “give the family the mental peace that women will be safe.” 

Providers are encouraged to identify critical household (and community) members whose acceptance and support are necessary to enable women entrepreneurs to thrive in their communities and develop an awareness-building campaign to achieve this. 

Consider personal initiative training to complement business training.

“Early on, we realized this was a gap and found that the entrepreneurs need to go through a process to discover and then utilize their own inner strengths, to grow their businesses and improve their lives.” —Soma Dutta, Supporting last-mile women energy entrepreneurs: What works and what does not

Beyond capacity building that supports women sales agents with the business skills they need to grow, dedicated personal initiative training can be an added advantage, supporting women entrepreneurs to build a growth mindset and a sense of individual agency. For example, research from Uganda has shown that training focused on developing a growth-oriented mindset can be more effective than standard business training for women entrepreneurs. In India, Pollinate Group dedicates the first half of its eight-week training program to “ improving agents’ confidence and ability to speak up for themselves and with community members.” Trainees must successfully complete this section before moving on to learning business skills. JITA Bangladesh launched a “confidence building campaign,” which paired women agents with students from local schools. The students encouraged agents to knock on doors, boosting women’s sales by up to 300%. 

Peer networks can also be advantageous for building the capacity of women entrepreneurs by sharing relevant business practices, facilitating new connections and partnerships, and offering tailored advice as women grow their businesses. For Solar Sister, peer support is a central strategy, and their “sisterhood” groups meet regularly to “connect with female colleagues, order inventory and other business supplies, reinforce skills, and build trust.”

The literature also identifies best practices for women entrepreneurs when it comes to delivering in-person training in a gender-responsive way:

• Schedule training sessions at locations close to women agents’ homes and during school hours, as women may have fewer childcare and home responsibilities during that time.
• Training locations should be easy to reach, safe, can be used free of charge, and socially acceptable.
• Avoid scheduling training during sowing and harvesting seasons.
• Consider providing childcare as part of the training.

Frequent engagement drives successful onboarding.

Literature suggests that frequently engaging with women entrepreneurs during the digital onboarding process is necessary, particularly during key moments where dropouts are likely. For example, HUL’s Shakti project observed that women entrepreneurs needed to complete five or six digital ordering and payment cycles to become comfortable with the process. Visits from their field team were an important part of this process to address issues that came up for women entrepreneurs. Additionally, offering guided onboarding at home (instead of at a store) was more successful. Similarly, literature found that reaching out to women entrepreneurs every three or four days in the first 15 days of onboarding is ideal for addressing issues that might come up. 

Branding can help women entrepreneurs establish customer trust.

Literature suggests that in rural areas particularly, trust plays a large role in purchase decisions, and a brand’s value can be an important enabler of this trust. For example, ENERGIA’s Women’s Economic Empowerment program partners equip their recruited women entrepreneurs with branded material and marketing collateral (such as t-shirts, notebooks, or tote bags) to lend professionalism and recognition to their businesses. Similarly, Solar Sister provides its entrepreneurs in Uganda with orange hijabs, the brand’s predominant color. Providers could consider whether similar branded materials might be advantageous to the women entrepreneurs in their last-mile distribution models. 

Establish and communicate clear safety, security, and harassment policies and effective recourse processes.

Literature focused on last-mile distribution and platform-based work highlights that the presence of harassment and gender-based discrimination negatively impacts a woman agent’s ability to perform sales activities. This can be compounded by actual and perceived safety and security concerns, which can impede the use of mobile services by women micro-entrepreneurs. 

While safety and security concerns (both actual and perceived) should be applied against the local context, considerations might include: 

• Recourse processes that offer sellers more protection. In Myanmar, a study found that a quarter of deliveries from online entrepreneurs were turned down by buyers at the doorstep, leading to losses of income.
• Good support services to the sales agents. For example, CoAmana decided to establish a call center staffed entirely by women to provide their customers with a dedicated support team. Similarly, HUL’s Shakti project found that a phone helpline staffed by agents conversant in regional languages and self-service support mechanisms over WhatsApp and SMS in the local language have increased convenience for Shakti entrepreneurs.
• Processes that make it easy and safe for women entrepreneurs to report abuse and collaborate with relevant agencies to ensure these reports are responded to quickly and effectively.
• Where appropriate, other safety mechanisms for women entrepreneurs to use, such as providing pepper spray or introducing an SOS or panic buttons within apps to use in the event of emergencies (though these should be checked by platforms or third-party organizations for effectiveness)   

Additionally, we encourage providers to clearly and simply communicate policies and recourse processes with women entrepreneurs. 

Consider incentives and nudges to drive usage.

Offering incentives to women entrepreneurs can be advantageous, particularly to onboard users, drive use, recruit other candidates, and reduce churn. For example, incentives could be used to reward women entrepreneurs who refer other women successfully hired as agents. Research found that entrepreneurs recruited through friends sell almost three times as much as those recruited from community events. Incentives may also encourage women entrepreneurs further along the user journey by rewarding certain stages of digital uptake. In India, HUL’s Shakti project offered women entrepreneurs “Ushop Points”—cashback rewards that were redeemable against future orders based on digital progress. 

Several organizations also observed that women were more interested (than men) in non-financial packages that could benefit their entire households beyond direct monetary incentives, such as health insurance and financial contributions toward children’s education. Further, informational-based nudges sent to women entrepreneurs could also encourage usage. For example, our partner project in Nigeria is testing whether these types of nudges (such as pricing alerts, stock availability, and margin calculators) lead to an increase in entrepreneurs making digital orders.

Build flexibility into distribution models.

Given women’s mobility and time constraints, building flexibility into women-centered models can be beneficial—an analysis of 21 organizations leveraging women sales forces found that almost all of them had to adapt the work schedules of women agents to better suit their daily routines and other household duties. For example: 

• Globally, women perform three-quarters of unpaid care work, dedicating an average of 4 hours and 25 minutes per day. Balancing sales activities alongside unpaid domestic and care work might prove challenging for some women entrepreneurs. 
• Additional flexibility may be needed during key agricultural and harvest phases. For instance, forthcoming insights from FAO find that rural women tend to be more involved in pre-production or post-harvest stages of crops, small-scale homegrown vegetables, poultry, and livestock.
• JITA Bangladesh found it increasingly more difficult for women agents to go door to door, so they shifted their model entirely, enabling agents to sell from their homes and advertise products from their windowsills. 
• A Shell Foundation pilot with women sales agents saw an average sales increase of 73% by enabling women to sell in group settings (such as schools or bus stops) instead of door-to-door sales.  

Measure indicators beyond earnings per month.

Research demonstrates that improved earnings do not automatically translate into economic empowerment for women sales agents, such as increased financial control or agency within their household. Interestingly, one analysis found that while organizations declared different impacts of being a sales agent on women, these impacts were often not measured by the organizations.

Figure: Impact of being a sales agent on women as declared (and backed up) by organizations, shown as a percent of interviewed organizations.

Figure source: Women sales force: an impactful channel for health-related products?

Measuring the impact of women-led distribution models using other social metrics should be a consideration for providers, such as indicators relating to decision-making, agency, household dynamics, and product impact on consumers. Providers might consider additionally measuring average earnings per hour worked to capture successful women entrepreneurs who may be earning less than other sales agents per month in profits due to fewer hours worked.

Women-centered distribution models for reaching the last mile show potential for e-commerce providers and women entrepreneurs. As we learn through our program and partners, we will continue to update these insights.