A package delivery business provides quick, reliable, generally same-day delivery, depending on the location.
In the US there are national delivery services (the likes of UPS, FedEx and USPS). But people also need packages delivered to nearby locations quickly than the longer delivery schedules taken by these services. A service could be operating in a particular niche like delivering food or catering to all kinds of goods delivery.
Delivery business or an on demand delivery business has a wide array of objectives that comes to the forefront.
The chief objective for most on-demand delivery businesses is to reduce the delivery time to the lowest possible. Delivery time usually includes package travel time, loading time, unloading time (if any), and waiting time.
Technology has made it imperative to inculcate optimization at every stage in order to diminish delivery time.
In delivery business the travel time to the destination from the origin or starting point can be reduced by linking route and traffic optimization. Multiple route optimizing software will provide suggestions for optimal route to reach the destination in the shortest time possible and via the route with least deviations.
Route optimizing software captures real-time traffic data and suggests the optimal way of ensuring delivery of goods in quick time.
The highest investment when it comes to package delivery business is the number of vehicles that a firm would have to purchase in order to carry out the business seamlessly. Hence care must be taken to invest in just the right amount of vehicles. Having multiple vehicles operating in the same route to deliver packages that can be handled by a single vehicle adds to the capital cost.
Drivers and vehicles are the most expensive entities in a package delivery business. Delivery management software along with delivery schedule software can minimize the number of vehicles that is needed to serve all requests/deliveries.
Requests in the on demand delivery niche is usually quick responsiveness to be served within a geographical allocation in a dynamic situation.
The same vehicle can be allocated to multiple requests if and when the pick-up locations are in close proximity. Pick-up and delivery business need multiple solutions such as route optimization, real-time tracking, loading and unloading process optimization, and many such.
Strategies For Delivery Business
Choose your expenses and delivery strategies at the inception of your business. Strategies and costs that you adapt at the beginning will be the deciding factor for customers to choose you over your competitor.
75% of online customers consider pricing in package delivery as the primal deciding factor. 65% may decide not to choose a particular package delivery business just because of their costing.
Clients also consider the time to delivery as another important factor. Package delivery business can be split into three main heads - picking, packaging, and shipping.
You may be having a wonderful system in place for the kind of load you are handling at present. But will you be able to scale within a day's notice is the question. So it is imperative to be ready for such a situation, so rethink your strategy entirely - we elucidate below:
Use appropriate technology to make the package delivery business efficient and successful. Technologies such as route optimization and real-time tracking provides able delivery management solutions that can give ideal control to the management over the business.
Most successful logistics services utilize barcodes, RFID, and routing software.
Customers can come up with various requirements when it comes to package delivery. Hence it is imperative to have multiple pricing models based on size, weight and delivery timing. This will give the customers the necessary options to choose from. Now the customer feels that a fair price is being paid depending on their requirement.
Different alternatives in pricing and packaging empowers package delivery business to make their business model appealing to customers.
Packaging the parcel can also have a suitable influence on clients. Proper packaging not only protects the parcel throughout the delivery journey but will finally also show your professional attitude to your clients.
Creative packaging should be an integral part in a package delivery service as clients do give importance to this factor.
Keeping the customer engaged with necessary information is imperative. One essential factor to keep up the brand image is the customer being aware of the whereabouts of his package at all times. Keep clients in the loop with information regarding the status of the parcel all through the journey is imperative.
Have a live chat provision for customers and update customers via notifications using SMS. Customer should be aware of the estimated time of delivery.
This is possible with real-time tracking which is a commendable strategy for customer retention.
Unexpected events can happen at any time, during which the customer's goods could get damaged. Therefore it is imperative to offer insurance as a recompense. Ensuring the safety of customer parcels will bring about trust in the service. This is especially useful when the cost of the goods is high.
