Same day delivery

Although the facts are controversial, many historians say that the first home delivery took place in Italy in 1889.

Same Day Delivery is an English expression that means same day delivery. In the minds of consumers it seems like something trivial, carried out by restaurants and supermarkets for a long time. But for other sectors of commerce, it is a huge logistical challenge, requiring billions of reais in investment. With the pandemic, consumers began to buy online in large quantities. And a good part of them wanted to receive the product as soon as possible. Preferably on the same day. Meeting this expectation has become a dispute between giants in the field of logistics. All to win customers.

Delivery history is very old. Although the facts are controversial, many historians say that the first home delivery took place in Italy in 1889. King Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Savoy were in Naples and ordered a pizza through a courier. But it was only in the 1950s that the delivery process took on the shape of what we know today, thanks to television and the North American market. And those first experiences involved food. What dish? Again, pizza. All made on the same day and ordered over the phone. In Brazil, this trend arrived in 1980. Therefore, it is easy to understand how same-day delivery entered the collective imagination.

Today orders are placed over the Internet. In 2021 alone, e-commerce earned 220 billion reais in Brazil, according to Folha de São Paulo. And most deliveries are taking place on the same day. In the case of Lojas Americanas, national leader in this category, 35% of the products sold are delivered within 3 hours and another 59% on the following day. Today Rede Americanas (which also owns Shoptime and Submarino) has 25 Distribution Centers in 11 Brazilian states, in addition to 3500 stores and franchises, serving 900 cities with ultra-fast delivery. The goal is to serve 100% of Brazilian households with this possibility, but this is expensive.

Mercado Livre, an Argentine multinational, delivers on the same day in 50 Brazilian cities and is investing 17 billion reais in Brazil. Part of that money will reach 100 cities in 2022. Magazine Luiza and Via Varejo (owner of Casas Bahia and Ponto Frio) are not far behind. Magalu has 25 DCs in 15 states and the Federal District. Via Varejo, on the other hand, has a structure that allows it to serve 2500 cities with delivery in 24 hours, thanks to 30 DCs in 22 states. Half of the sales of these large stores today occur over the internet. That is why investment in logistics has been billions. Not to mention job creation. Mercado Livre alone has 4,000 vacancies!

This is an expanding market. According to the marketing portal The Fulfillment Lab, 90% of consumers would be willing to opt for a site that offers free delivery. The problem is that absorbing this cost can make your business unfeasible. That’s why it’s interesting to offer added value through another variable, such as a shorter delivery time. According to the same study, 60% of consumers opt for those who offer greater agility.

The websites ecommercebrasil.com.br and intelipost.com.br now offer some tips for implementing SDD (Same Day Delivery) in your company:

• Mapping and formalizing the processes — The first step in implementing an efficient same-day delivery service is to study the processes in search of flaws that could compromise the expected results. By identifying the problems and the main bottlenecks, it is necessary to find solutions to eliminate them and ensure that the new routine is adopted by employees.
• Invest in automation software — In your virtual store, everything must work in sync. Thus, your physical stock must go hand in hand with the virtual stock and, for that, investing in quality software will help you in this task. Invest in automation programs to help manage inventory and sales, as well as control routes and costs.
• Inform your customers about deadlines — Having a highlighted area on the website dedicated to products that are eligible for SDD, as well as informing the deadline for same-day delivery, is essential to avoid inconvenience and customer complaints.
• Have good outgoing inventory — SDD does not work for all of a company’s products. In this way, select the products that sell the most or that people buy the most in urgent situations and have a good amount in stock. If your business operates locally, it may only have one collection point. But if it works on a wider route, it might be interesting to think about dark stores or microfulfilment centers, distribution centers spread across various locations in cities to facilitate delivery.
• Manage stocks efficiently — You need to control stock levels and check which point needs to be supplied. There is no point in offering same-day delivery service if the items are out of stock. In addition to losing the sale, you run the risk of creating an unpleasant image for the customer.
• Have more than one delivery method — To ensure delivery effectiveness, it is important that the company has some diversity in the delivery method so as not to depend only on one freight company or the Post Office. Partnering with specialized and local transport companies, with a good fleet of vehicles, as well as investing in own vehicles, can be an alternative. Another advantage of this variety is being able to deliver outside business hours.
• Hire reliable carriers — Transporting orders is the final stage of the sales process, but it is also one of the most important, given that, even if internal processes are aligned, inefficient transport — which causes many delays, losses, or delivery the defective product — directly affects customer satisfaction.
• Monitor deadlines — To find out whether carriers are guaranteeing the stipulated level of delivery service, it is essential to monitor the distribution process. In this way, it is possible to identify the focus of problems and how they arise, facilitating the decision-making process and new planning, if applicable.
• Track performance indicators — Use good KPIs (Key Performance Indicator). Analyzing the results by performance indicators allows evaluating the processes, from one end to the other, and identifying what still needs to be done in terms of adjustments and improvements.

Does it take a lot of money? Yes. But you can make partnerships that will drastically reduce the investment. The advantages of SDD are unquestionable. Below are some, listed by Maplink:

• Offer more convenience to consumers;
• Improves customers’ shopping experience;
• Increases trust in the brand;
• Increases the loyalty rate;
• It is a great competitive differentiator;
• Possibility to serve an important slice of the market.

Did you like the article? We, from Águia Sistemas, can help your company in this and other matters related to Intralogistics! Keep in touch with us!