Automate delivery slots for (free) local delivery
Are you a retailer, selling products online using Woocommerce? And you provide free local delivery to your customers?
Providing free shipping for your online customers is a simple setup. Delivering to your customers locally can present a challenge. If you are starting a business with this setup in mind, beware of the logistics.
Points to be considered may be obvious but how will you overcome these seemingly innocent unintrusive objectives to simply delivering a product to your customers doorstep?
Step one – your boundary
Step two – ensure orders can only be places within your geolocation bountary (allow specific post codes)
Step three – inform your customers a suitable time slot will be allocated for delivery – (reasons can be provided that are customer service centric)
Step four – cross check orders each day for distance between orders
Step five – group orders closest together and organise day for each delivery run
Step six – inform customers day of delivery as soon as possible
Step seven – deliver orders
Step eight – repeat
Now these steps appear simple but they are manual. There is no built in off the shelf automation system to make this an administrative breeze or a walk in the park!
Taking orders is exciting. Checking the Post Code of the customers delivery address is exciting. Waitng for the next order to see how close or far away from the first order is excisting and then your headache starts!
How long do you wait for the next order that is in the middle of the 2 order your have? Or what if the next order is close to the first order or second order! You have three orders and your business is now operational. what if you dont get another order for 5 days ? Not a positive thought but it may happen unless you are actively marketing and runnig ads.
Big Questions to consider for a free local delivery service (you could charge a small fee!)
How many orders do you need before doing a delivery run
How many days is the maximum before yu have to do a delivery run
How will you communicate with your customers (this is not an option they have to be contacted to arrange delivery day / time)
With answers to these questions your operation should be implemented without any hitches. It should run smoothly but its still not automated. It relies on manual decisions. These decisions are soley based on geolocations for your customers. The delivery address or shipping address (Post Code) is the key decision maker.
As time goes by and your orders are flowing in (5+ a day). These should make delivery slot allocation a little easier. You will be busier and perhaps more busier than you previously thought especially for organising the delivery runs. Organising routes for deliveries start to require more administration than previously thought. But it is essential and th manual aspect gives you full oversight of deliveries going out on which days. But there is a blind spot on the Woocommerce Admin. Inside the backoffice the orders can be printed off and placed into groups for delivery but there are no visible markers / tags to glance at and know when that order is being delivered. Would it make admin easier to allocate the order a delivery day from the Woocommerce admin ? The obvious problem is that you cannot see the Post Code of the order just by logging into the Woocommerce orders admin. You have to click into the order. Exposing the Post Code of the order and each order is the first consideration for making an automation system. Having a list of Post Codes that need to be assigned a delivery day is the first step.
Can you think of a different first step?