Consumer expectations for fast fulfillment—and more importantly, choice in fulfillment options—continue to rise. Large retailers are feeling increased pressure to deliver same-day service at scale while maintaining the reliability and experience their customers expect and the profitability their business leaders demand.

While same-day delivery requires a dynamic operational strategy, mastering the moving parts is the key to scaling successfully. By implementing a few key strategies, large retailers can meet both customer expectations and internal goals.

10 Same-day delivery challenges large retailers face

Understanding consumer expectations for shorter delivery times and actually building a strong same-day delivery strategy are two different things. For large retailers either just starting to offer same-day service or struggling to meet their delivery promises, many roadblocks can hinder success. These include:

1. Managing fluctuating demand and driver capacity. Especially for retailers managing their own fleets, ensuring the correct capacity and driver staffing as customer demand changes can be one of the biggest limitations.
2. Peak season surges. Higher order volume brings greater complexity, along with less forgiveness for delivery fumbles from customers.
3. Difficulty scaling. Whether it’s too big a service area to effectively deliver same-day orders or just too high an order volume, a fast-growing retailer can struggle to maintain a superior customer experience as they expand.
4. Ensuring consistent service across markets. Another issue that can arise, especially during a period of rapid growth, is customers in different service regions receiving vastly different delivery experiences.
5. Inventory placement and visibility. To have success with same-day delivery, retailers need to have inventory close enough to customers to make the short transit time feasible. Real-time inventory data across all locations is also critical.
6. Maintaining delivery visibility. As a recent consumer survey found, customers value transparency and reliability, just as much as delivery speed. But that transparency can be difficult when order turnaround times are measured in hours, rather than days.
7. Difficulty integrating the retailer’s TMS with a multicarrier mix. Getting a TMS to communicate efficiently with carrier systems can be complex and difficult – but is also critical to getting all orders delivered on time. To simplify this, UPS and Roadie offer integrated systems and billing, allowing retailers to launch rapid same-day deliveries while counting that volume directly toward their existing UPS small-package volume commitments.
8. Controlling in-house fleet costs. Fuel, vehicle maintenance, insurance, staffing and other costs can quickly balloon out of control without an efficient same-day delivery process.
9. Oversized items. Big and bulky items like furniture and appliances create their own unique challenges, especially for same-day delivery.
10.  Failed deliveries. The inability to overcome any of these challenges can lead to a delivery failure. No matter the reason (incomplete or incorrect customer information, inaccurate inventory counts, missed delivery windows), every failed delivery damages the delivery experience and puts a retailer at risk of losing customers.

For retailers experiencing these challenges or looking to begin or expand same-day delivery service, a few key strategies can help avoid major pitfalls. These include:

1. Getting a handle on inventory visibility across all locations and facilities. Promising same-day delivery, only to find an item out of stock or in a warehouse too far from the customer, will lead to a negative customer experience.
2. Diversify the last-mile: Eliminate technical friction by utilizing platforms natively integrated into the UPS ecosystem. Because Roadie is a UPS company, large retailers can launch nationwide same-day delivery by connecting via APIs they likely already use, allowing them to manage standard ground and crowdsourced same-day workflows seamlessly.
3. Leveraging a crowdsourced final-mile delivery option that allows for quick or sudden changes in demand and makes same-day delivery easily scalable.

Crowdsourcing the final mile is an especially powerful strategy that allows for not just fast delivery, but also delivery for often hard to manage orders like big and bulky items. Crowdsourced delivery with Roadie also offers nationwide availability, flexible solutions for different delivery scenarios and windows (like BODFS and cross-docking options) and a consistent white-labeled experience for customers. Roadie’s API is also integrated into UPS systems, so there’s no costly or complicated process to get up and running.

As consumers push for both speed and transparency in order delivery, being aware of potential issues and having a comprehensive plan to solve them (including a crowdsourced final mile to ease same-day delivery stress) will help large retailers deliver the experience that will keep their customers coming back.

Is your business ready to meet same-day delivery challenges? Find out with our checklist.