With U.S. consumers looking for same-day delivery service, more retailers are striving to meet customers where they’re at, whether at home or on-the-go. Technology helps connect small businesses to their busy customers, but it also presents ROI challenges. Small businesses need real-time visibility of delivery orders on a platform that provides a personalized experience for local customers. This is what Trellus Same-Day Delivery provides small businesses — a seamless technology experience that helps to overcome common challenges associated with technology-based delivery services.
These challenges came to light in the 2022 Bringg Barometer, The State of Retail Fulfillment & Delivery survey. The “big headline” from this study is that the vast majority of respondents, 99%, said they will be offering same-day delivery within the next three years, compared to 35% today. This goal is largely driven by customer demand. On its own, this statistic is overwhelming, but it does not provide the full context of a challenging operating environment.
According to research, 44% of retailers surveyed are managing multiple fulfillment channels with disparate technologies. Retailers report that too many current last-mile fulfillment models do not support same-day or on-demand delivery. More than a third, 36%, said they don’t have the technology for same-day delivery, citing real-time visibility of delivery orders as the main problem.
Visibility was top-of-mind again when retailers were asked about scaling delivery. A majority, 61%, mentioned a lack of real-time visibility once the order is out for delivery as their top challenge, and 55% called out the inefficient manual nature of the way they currently plan and dispatch their orders.
Source: 2022 Bringg Barometer, The State of Retail Delivery and Fulfillment
Local Businesses Have an Advantage in Providing Real-Time Visibility of Delivery Orders
The Bringg survey found that having multiple fulfillment options and good service is not enough to ensure a competitive advantage for retailers. Rather, merchants need to focus on automating backend processes for better operational visibility. They can achieve this by creating more accurate delivery windows and focusing on customer satisfaction.
An overwhelming 98% of respondents admitted to having pain points when it comes to delivering on time. Keeping on theme, 36% indicated that their biggest pain point was real-time order visibility/tracking. Almost 1 in 4 of these companies struggle to meet delivery times because of travel distance. This points to delivery operations that are not set up for hyperlocal delivery.
Source: 2022 Bringg Barometer, The State of Retail Delivery and Fulfillment
Considering the data, Bringg identified a clear trend towards hyperlocal delivery. More than two-thirds of retailers surveyed are using department and mall stores as local fulfillment centers or “dark stores” (67%) and many already use ship-from-store (58%) and micro-fufillment centers (44%) to get closer to their customers. The movement of big retail companies toward hyperlocal delivery should be a call-to-action for small businesses: Leverage your ship-from-store flexibility to stay ahead of the curve!
The study authors acknowledge that same-day delivery can be an expensive form of fulfillment, but it’s a value differentiator and in high demand with consumers. “Rather than downgrading same-day as a priority, businesses should find solutions to make this fulfillment model more cost-effective,” they conclude.
The Trellus Advantage: That’s a key part of our mission here at Trellus. We want our local downtowns here on Long Island to thrive, and we’ve made same-day local delivery an affordable solution for retailers competing against e-commerce and big-box giants. Learn more about our pricing here.
The Benefit of Working with a Trusted Delivery Partner
More than 80% of retailers surveyed are working with upwards of five providers as a solution to offering fast delivery and scaling delivery in general. However, 36% who work with multiple fleets find themselves suffering from lack of brand control, meaning they don’t have enough visibility over the provider’s end-to-end delivery performance and customer experience.
Trellus’ simple technology-based solution addresses these challenges and more. With Trellus, customers are notified that their package is on the way, and merchants receive photo proof of delivery. Both the customer and the merchant have the ability to communicate with the driver, and our Dispatch Team helps merchants schedule batch deliveries. Our high level of customer service and communication provides a personalized end-to-end experience that’s on brand with shopping locally.
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