Deliveries on a Wednesday afternoon
You offer local delivery. Customers ring, email or ask in the shop, and you write their address on the back of the receipt. On Wednesday afternoon, when the shop is quiet, you or your partner load the car and head out. One customer is out, one address turns out to be on the far edge of town, and one customer was promised Tuesday.
Online, the website offers only courier delivery, so someone two streets away pays postage for a candle they could have had the same day.
Local delivery is run by memory
Local delivery grows up informally. It is a kind gesture that becomes a service, without any of the structure that services need.
- Addresses and promised times are written on scraps of paper.
- There is no clear area, so far-flung addresses get included.
- The website offers only courier postage.
- The route is worked out in the car.
- Customers are not told when to expect the delivery.
What an informal delivery service costs
Wasted trips to customers who are out, detours to addresses that should not have been included and deliveries promised on days you cannot do all cost time, fuel and goodwill.
The lost opportunity is on the website. Local customers who would happily order online for local delivery are charged courier postage, and some do not bother.
How we build local delivery for a shop
- You set your delivery area by postcode or distance, the days you deliver and any charge or minimum order.
- At checkout on your website, customers inside the area see local delivery as an option with the next available days.
- Orders taken in the shop or by phone are added to the same list with the address checked against your area.
- On delivery day, a route is suggested using a mapping service, in an order that makes sense for your town.
- Customers receive a message on the morning with an approximate window.
- The driver marks each delivery as done or not at home on a phone, with a photo if left in a safe place the customer chose.
| Step | Before | With local delivery |
|---|---|---|
| Order taken | Address on a scrap of paper | Address checked against your area |
| Online option | Courier only | Local delivery offered at checkout |
| Route | Worked out in the car | Suggested before leaving |
| Customer told | Not at all | Message with a window on the day |
| Done | From memory | Marked on the phone |
You set the rules for where and when you deliver. The system applies them; it does not commit you to anything you have not chosen.
Delivery day afterwards
The day's deliveries are listed in a sensible order before you leave, with addresses, phone numbers and notes. Customers know to expect you, so fewer are out. Online orders from local customers come through as local deliveries rather than courier parcels.
At the end of the round, every delivery is marked, and any not-at-homes are listed for the next day.
If someone else does the round, such as a family member or a part-time driver, they have everything they need on their phone without a phone call to the shop. And because local delivery now appears at checkout, customers nearby start to use it for exactly the things couriers handle badly: heavy pots, large frames and last-minute birthday presents needed that afternoon.
You can also see how much local delivery is actually used, which days are busiest and which parts of town order most. That helps you decide whether to add a second delivery day before Christmas, or to change the area if the far edges take too long to reach.
Is this your delivery service?
- Local delivery addresses are written on scraps of paper.
- Your website only offers courier postage.
- You have driven to customers who were not in.
- Your delivery area is not clearly defined.
- The route is planned in the car.