So, some of your competitors offer same-day delivery, but you can’t decide if it is a distraction from the fundamentals or a new competitive advantage. You want to give it a try, but at the same time you’re unsure whether your sales volume can justify the cost and effort of a same-day delivery rollout.
On-demand same-day delivery can level the playing field while positioning you to grow your business volume and win more customers. After all, 30% of consumers now expect same-day delivery. Adding ultrafast delivery via an on-demand network gives you flexible delivery options your customers want — without a massive investment in fleet assets or the stress of managing multiple couriers.
Here are five factors that can help you determine when same-day delivery makes the most sense for your business.
Competition
If your competitors offer same-day delivery, you’ll want to determine how they position themselves in the marketplace. How can you differentiate your delivery offerings to attract more market share? Maybe they have a robust brick-and-mortar operation, but their online presence is lacking. Or maybe you both offer oversized goods, but their same-day delivery fees are high, and they rely on the long lead times and opaque tracking of LTL carriers. Using a network of independent drivers, on-demand same-day delivery offers your customers more delivery flexibility at checkout, with lower, more transparent shipping fees and live tracking with photographic proof of delivery.
Infrastructure
Do you have the necessary infrastructure in place to handle the increased volume and speed of same-day orders? If you’re a small business, the answer is likely “no.” But research from Roadie and Supply Chain Dive’s studioID shows that the investment pays off: More than three-quarters (77%) of leaders surveyed confirmed an increase in net new sales after deploying same-day delivery.
On top of increasing sales, the same-day strategy you choose affects bandwidth. Delivering same day from stores means store training, staging and hand-off. Roadie works with that model, but also allows you to deliver same-day up to 100 miles from any of our cross-docking facilities through RoadieXD™. This model allows you to send full truckload or less-than-truckload shipments directly from your DCs to Roadie, and skip the extra in-store operations.
Without the need for your own warehouse space, you can get orders to your customers faster, and you can seamlessly scale your inventory based on demand.
Location
Traditionally, same-day deliveries are largely limited to densely populated urban areas, owing to the fact that the density drives more demand for supply. On-demand delivery can alleviate that pain point. Roadie not only enables same-day delivery, but the network of 200,000 independent drivers means you can reach customers as far as 100 miles away from your location or warehouse. Doing so enables you to master same-day, final-mile fulfillment of oversized items, as well as smaller packages, well outside of a metropolitan area.
Business size
In a traditional sense, very few small or midsize businesses can afford fulfillment capabilities, even if they conduct high volumes of business. Calculating dimensional weight, packing items and calculating distance can complicate even small packages, particularly when you’re talking volume. And big and bulky goods, whether palletized freight or a large piece of furniture, can further hamper processes and prices when tasked with moving them through traditional delivery methods.
An on-demand network gives any retailer of any size — or any volume — an alternative value proposition. Using the Roadie network of drivers means you can skip the headache of package calculation, instead paying a simple, up-front price. If you’re delivering big and bulky items using the Roadie platform, a driver will pick up the item or items for delivery in the correct vehicle size, and you can even request the driver use straps or a dolly as part of the delivery.
Technology
Whether your customers want same-day or next-day fulfillment, what other technologies are you offering? Customers want to know where their packages are at all times, and retailers need to be able to provide this visibility. Evaluate the investment in a platform that can provide order management and tracking, with real-time text and email updates and photographic proof throughout the delivery chain. The Roadie web portal offers a full suite of intuitive tools designed to help you scale your business volume as needed. Batched pick up options, a bulk upload tool and a logistics dashboard make it easy to schedule deliveries and track them as soon as they leave your business.
Before implementing same-day delivery, you’ll want to assess the above-mentioned factors. Understanding the costs, benefits and competitive landscape can help you make an informed decision about whether same-day delivery is the right strategy for your business volume. As an established logistics management solution, Roadie can help.