Same-Day Delivery Guide: How to Implement & Optimize Delivery Operations 2024

Online delivery businesses are focused on delivering same-day deliveries to gain more business and satisfy the customers’ evolving demands.

With the big guns like Amazon stepping up the standard of same-day deliveries, being in the online delivery business world, you need to hit the bullseye with your same-day delivery strategy.

But how to offer same-day delivery?

There are different ways to achieve the target, but we have filtered the optimized path to help you understand the nitty-gritty elements of same-day deliveries.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

Why Is Same-Day Delivery Demand Growing?

The demand for same-day delivery is growing because of the customers and its revenue for the business.

In the digital era, the patience of modern-day consumers has decreased, and they want instant deliveries within a few clicks at their doorsteps. And for businesses that can achieve these targets, people are willing to flush in dollar sums big time.

Let’s look at a few of the trending statistics Bringg spotted that help us throw some light on the rising same-day delivery demand in the business ecosystem.

1. Faster shipping increases the conversion rate

Businesses offering faster shipping services are witnessing a surge in the conversion rate. Paid ads that feature ‘same day’ have increased the online conversion for businesses by 5x in the furniture and home retail business.

Similar results were witnessed in the apparel industry with an increased conversion rate of 2x on paid search ads with the term ‘same day’.

2. People want a minimum delivery window

Over 45% of the customers are willing to purchase a product if it has a maximum delivery window of 2 days.

If you offer a fast delivery service, two-day delivery will not match the consumers’ expectations. According to a survey conducted by GreyOrange, over 57% of the customers will not purchase from a business after experiencing three late orders.

The last mile local market in the United States is growing at a fast pace of 32% growth per year as same-day deliveries are becoming the new standards in the eCommerce business segment.

3. The shopping cart abandonment rate is increasing because of slow delivery offers

Over 27% of the consumers admitted that they abandoned their shopping cart because the business was not offering a quick delivery. It’s all about instant gratification in the digital era where online delivery businesses need to shift their focus toward enhancing the speed of their delivery while maintaining a premium quality for an excellent customer experience.

4. Retail businesses are switching toward same-day delivery

Over 64% of the retailers will switch toward same-day delivery services in the coming few years. Over 35% of the retailers have already transformed their delivery service by 2021.

Same-day delivery is becoming the center of attraction for different retailers globally. Businesses want to make the most of the rising opportunity in the delivery sector with the rise in instant gratification among the customers.

Now that we understand the importance of same-day delivery and why it’s on the rise post-pandemic, the transformation to achieve it for your business is not a smooth ride.

You need to overcome multiple hurdles to integrate an error-free same-day delivery service for your business.

Let’s look at the challenges you can face with a same-day delivery service.

5 Same-Day Delivery Challenges

1. Limited staff 

The rise in the customer and industry demands to fulfill same-day deliveries requires a decent workforce and equipment to run a smooth and agile delivery process.

With an increase in business numbers, there is a shortage of skilled drivers, fleet managers, and other staff members in the industry. The shortage directly put pressure on the last mile delivery providers to match the customer’s expectations with a limited workforce.

It can cause errors and delivery delays resulting in a poor delivery experience. Businesses can switch toward modern-day technologies that can help you automate the redundant delivery process and create a productive environment for a limited workforce.

2. Travel distance from customers 

Out of 4, only 1 company can meet the delivery demands because of the travel distance.

The surge in the online delivery business has forced multiple retailers to look for larger warehouses outside the city in the rural areas or suburbs, away from the customers. Very few retailers have their storage houses closer to the customers, which increases the travel distance between the fulfillment centers and the customers.

And not every business has a robust inventory management system that increases the inefficiencies in the delivery process and makes it difficult for businesses to guarantee inventory availability on demand.

3. Order visibility and tracking across multiple drivers

Customers want instant access to the tracking details with their last-mile delivery. Multiple businesses associate with third-party delivery services that minimize instant real-time visibility chances for the customers.

Even with the manual routing process, you cannot get the real-time visibility of your delivery drivers and don’t have the option to provide your customers the real-time details about their orders.

And if third-party delivery providers cannot deliver on time or fail to deliver the order, it will directly affect your business, increase the delivery cost, and deliver a poor customer experience. 

4. Cost to deliver

You can lock in millions of dollars over the years by offering same-day delivery service to your customers. Still, it’s only possible if you can minimize the delivery cost.

You need to remove the latencies, roadblocks, and different factors that can increase the delivery cost of a single order.

Having an in-house agile delivery management system can help you improve the efficiency of your delivery process and put more focus to cut the delivery cost.

You can use different advanced technology to help you with automation and agile communication to minimize the friction in the delivery process.

The last challenge you can face with same-day delivery is effective route planning and dispatching.

5. Inefficient or manual dispatching and routing

Manual dispatching and routing processes are ineffective in handling the modern-day surge in the online delivery numbers and same-day delivery fulfillment requirements.

Pen and paper routing and logistics approach give rise to human errors, ineffective results, and no real-time tracking of the deliveries. Your customers can get delayed or failed delivery orders that accumulate a bad experience. 

But you can bypass these challenges with effective route planning and optimization software that can help you match the same-day delivery expectation of the customers in no time.

How? Let’s find out.

How Does Route Planning and Optimization Software Help You with Same-Day Delivery?

Route planning and optimization software removes the barriers of manual route planning and logistics operation. It analyzes the most optimized multi-stop delivery path considering different aspects like weather and traffic conditions, vehicle and driver capacity, and order priority, among other touchpoints.

You can use a route planner to get real-time information about the delivery order and pass it on to the customers for delivering a quality customer experience.

It can strengthen the productivity of your in-house delivery and the logistic team as they can work in sync and collaborate actively on the route planner within instant messaging and communication.

You can streamline your delivery process by minimizing the delivery duration and cost and maximizing the number of orders delivered. Route planning and optimization can help you achieve same-day service with finesse.

But there are multiple route planning and optimization software available in the market. Which one is a complete package to fulfill your delivery business requirements?

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