Case Studies

Enabling express and slot-based deliveries for large format retail stores

Express deliveries and slot-based deliveries are the new in-things in E-commerce and even established large format retail stores. It is all about customer convenience. A lot of customers want deliveries to happen at their desired timeslots. World over, online and offline retail companies are coming up with ways to make it possible.

What makes express and slot-based deliveries a tough problem to solve?

Lack of on-ground visibility: Once the route planning has been drawn at the start of the day, it is usually left to drivers to follow the plan and go about delivering goods. Operation managers have very less or no real-time visibility of how things are moving on the ground. Most managers have to actually call drivers/riders to solve escalations or ask for updates.
Manual route planning: A lot of operation managers do manual route planning. These kinds of plans are heavily dependent on the knowledge and experience of the planner. It also does not take into account real-time on-ground realities.
Driver churn: A big problem in the industry is the constant driver churn. Every new driver takes time to learn the delivery route. By the time they become adept, they leave, and this cycle continues. It is a source of headache for most operation managers who have to constantly start from the basics to train new drivers.
Inaccurate geocoding and traffic constraints: Something as simple as an accurate address is a luxury in many countries. Delivery personnel find it really tough to locate the right address, thereby resulting in delayed ETAs and ultimately, a bad customer experience. If geocoding is one part of the problem, real-time traffic constraints is another. Since most of the route planning is manual, it does not take into consideration events like peak hours, vehicle restrictions, route restrictions, etc.
Fleet utilization: Operation managers find it really tough to allocate deliveries fairly to each rider/driver. Some drivers have to travel a lot to do their deliveries, some not so much, whereas some drivers might have to deliver more valuable goods as compared to the others. Also, managers might want to match the best drivers to the most valuable customers. Optimizing for all these scenarios takes a toll on managers.

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What makes express and slot-based deliveries a tough problem to solve?

A large one-of-its-kind specialist retail store in India, which houses around 200 brands under its roof, across 25 plus major Indian cities, was looking to set right its last-mile delivery and enable smooth express deliveries.

The firm did not have clear visibility of its on-ground operations (warehouse to customer delivery), and daily delivery route planning took a lot of time, which meant customers did not have a clue as to when their orders would arrive. Add to it a high delivery driver attrition and hence training of the new fleet, the overall customer experience took a hit.

Locus ensured 89% rider time utilization and also helped the firm achieve three-hour express deliveries.

The firm now uploads its daily delivery route details on Locus. Locus then optimizes both the vehicle loading and the routes and also sends out ETA SMS to end customers, along with a tracking link. Moreover, orders that are directly delivered from stores to the clients are also captured on Locus and statuses of those tasks get directly updated in the client's order management system (OMS).

Solutions Offered

Locus Dispatcher: This Dynamic Route Scheduling and Planning Software, generates optimized routes using Artificial Intelligence (AI), thereby enabling the riders to deliver more with less time. This results in increased vehicle efficiency and better compliance
Electronic Proof of Delivery: To authenticate customers
Delivery Alerts: Pushes delivery alerts via the Locus On The Road (LOTR) App
Locus TrackIQ (Formerly MotionTrack): Provides real-time tracking, insights & analytics deliveries on a single platform across all verticals
Control Tower set up for on-ground tracking

Business Sector

E-commerce, Retail

Performance Improved

89% rider time utilization

What can E-tailers do with Locus?

Accurate address detection and Geocoding to automate your shipment sorting.
Having a control tower application that will help manage operational exceptions and predictive alerts like delays, idle time, vehicle breakdowns, etc so as to ensure a great customer experience.
Intelligent clubbing of orders, based on factors such as location, delivery time slots, order specifications, priority orders.
Coming up with the most optimal fleet mix and route plan for the vehicles. This is done while considering both business as well as local route constraints such as traffic, route restrictions, etc.
Digitization of the process by enabling Electronic proof of delivery (EPOD).
Reducing turnaround time for the customer by optimizing locations of warehouses/distributer centers, sorting times at fulfillment centers and last-mile distribution centers
Increasing first attempt delivery rates (FADR)

Locus Helps Businesses Globally Achieve Their Last Mile Goals

Geocoding

Predictive Alerts

Intelligent clubbing of Orders

Electronic proof of delivery

First Attempt Delivery Rate

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