Locus Launches Delivery Promise Management Access Ahead of Peak Season 2026

New capability checks every mile behind each delivery slot, helping retailers show only the windows their fleet or carriers can serve.

MILPITAS, Calif., Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Locus, a leading AI-native logistics technology company, today launched Delivery Promise Management, a new solution that connects checkout with a retailer's real-time logistics data. The capability checks every leg behind a delivery slot, from the cutoff at the origin warehouse, through the linehaul feeding the delivery station, to the vehicle's route at the door. As a result, the delivery options shown to customers better reflect what the network can actually support.

Quick Facts:

• Locus' Delivery Promise Management is now available to support planning ahead of peak season.
• Delivery Promise Management helps retailers show delivery promises at checkout that reflect real operational capacity and drive order conversion.
• Delivery Promise Management supports delivery slot selection, appointment scheduling, tiered pricing based on service levels, eco-friendly delivery options and capacity-based delivery choices.
• Delivery Promise Management is designed for enterprise retailers managing high-volume e-commerce, big and bulky delivery, white-glove service, returns, pickups and hybrid carrier networks.
• In testing using one retailer's historical order data, Delivery Promise Management provided feasible delivery windows for 98.5% of orders and reduced orders without an available slot by 58%.
• Locus consumer research found that 51% of U.S. shoppers expect holiday shipping to be as fast or faster than normal, leaving retailers with little room for peak-season delivery misses.

Delivery Promises Matter More Than Ever Heading Into Peak Season 2026

Today, delivery performance heavily influences brand perception, and retailers are entering peak season with high expectations from their customers to deliver on the promises they make across the full purchasing journey.

According to Locus' 2026 State of Delivery Performance Report, 93% of U.S. shoppers say it affects how they view a company, while fewer than one in 10 believe retailers always meet fast or guaranteed delivery commitments. That reliability gap is now influencing purchase decisions as well. Locus' 2026 State of US Post-Purchase Report found that 20% of shoppers say reliable, predictable delivery is their top priority when choosing where to shop online.

"Peak season is no longer just about moving products quickly," said Nishith Rastogi, founder and CETO of Locus. "Retailers are being judged on whether they can actually deliver on the experience they promise. That promise is made at checkout, but it is kept by the network behind it, and most retailers cannot see what that network can carry until the order is already sold. Brands must align customer expectations with realistic operational capacity to truly stand out from their competitors."

How Does Delivery Promise Management Work?

For many retailers, the delivery estimate shown to a customer is static. It may say "delivery in 3-5 days" or offer a fast shipping option without checking whether the warehouse, carrier network or delivery fleet can actually support that commitment.

Locus' Delivery Promise Management evaluates each stage of the delivery journey before a window is shown at checkout, from the cutoff at the origin warehouse and the linehaul feeding the delivery station to the capacity of the final-mile route. The system returns an answer in under a second, helping retailers offer delivery windows that reflect what their networks can realistically support.

The capability can support:

• Exact appointment scheduling for white-glove, high-value, big and bulky deliveries
• Broader date-only delivery windows for standard e-commerce orders
• Tiered pricing for retailers to price premium windows off the service levels the engine returns
• Eco-friendly delivery options, including consolidated or lower-impact choices
• Delivery options across owned fleets, third-party carriers and hybrid logistics networks

In a test using a full week of historical order data from one retailer and deliberately constrained fleet capacity, Delivery Promise Management identified feasible delivery windows for 98.5% of orders. Live re-optimization reduced the share of orders left without a slot from 3.6% to 1.5%, a 58% reduction. For the remaining 1.5% of orders, the system withheld a delivery window and returned the reason: the route was full, the cutoff had passed or no fleet was rostered.

"Retailers already have much of the data needed to make better delivery promises, but that data often sits across separate systems," said Pradyumna Chowdhary, chief product officer at Locus. "Our Delivery Promise Management is designed to work with those existing systems rather than replace them, using APIs to connect checkout with the data retailers already have across inventory, fulfillment, carrier and capacity planning. The goal is to make delivery promise accuracy easier to operationalize without requiring retailers to rebuild their technology stack."

How to learn more about Delivery Promise Management

Retailers can learn more here and begin planning implementation ahead of peak season 2026.

For a more in-depth look at Delivery Promise Management with Locus' CPO Pradyumna Chowdhary, visit here: Introducing Delivery Promise Management: Your Questions, Answered.

Frequently Asked Questions:

• Who is Delivery Promise Management built for?
  • Delivery Promise Management is built for enterprise retailers managing high-volume e-commerce, big and bulky delivery, white-glove service, returns, pickups and delivery networks that combine owned fleets with third-party carriers.
• Why does Delivery Promise Management matter for retailers?
  • Delivery Promise Management closes the gap between the delivery options shown at checkout and what the network can serve. Every leg behind a slot is checked before a customer sees it, and once a window is promised, Delivery Promise Management preserves it through the day's re-planning. Re-planning can also free capacity that would otherwise go unused, allowing retailers to accept orders they may otherwise have turned down.
• Is Delivery Promise Management available now?
  • Yes. Retailers can request a demo and begin implementation planning now ahead of peak season. This gives teams time to evaluate how Delivery Promise Management fits into their checkout, fulfillment and delivery operations before seasonal demand rises.
• Does Delivery Promise Management require retailers to replace their existing systems?
  • No. It's designed to work with retailers' existing technology stacks through APIs, using data from systems such as inventory, fulfillment, carrier management and capacity planning.

About Locus

Locus, part of Ingka Group, is an agentic Transportation Management System (TMS) for all-mile, all-channel with 350+ enterprise customer deployments in 30+ countries across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The platform unifies orders, capacity and carrier networks into one living plan, aligning planning, execution and settlement, solving for real-world logistics constraints and complexities for large enterprises. Locus has optimized 1.5B + deliveries, helped achieve $320M+ in logistics cost savings and avoided 17M+ kg of emissions for its customers. Learn more at locus.sh.

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SOURCE Locus