You deliver a parcel to the customer's home. At 4pm. Chances are he or she is not there at that time. In fact, in 35 per cent of delivery situations, nobody is home initially. Annoying for the customer, because he or she still has to go to a pick-up station in the evening to collect the parcel. Or maybe the order is delivered again the next day. Hopefully, the consumer will be home by then. In that case, not only the customer suffers, but the distribution company also loses a lot of extra time and money. They usually get paid per package delivered. So not delivered also means not paid.
To avoid a closed door, it should actually be agreed with customer when a package will be delivered. But that is expensive. Many online shops therefore charge an extra fee for this service. Research shows that consumers are not willing to pay extra for this delivery service. They would rather wait for their parcel to be delivered again at a time when they happen to be at home.
To spare logistics companies and consumers this suffering, more and more start-ups are emerging in the US that provide last-mile. They agree with the customer when he or she is home. So the distribution company only has to deliver the package to this company. In San Francisco, for example, Doorman is making a busy start. This company delivers goods every evening by appointment, until midnight. Even on Sundays. For this service, Doorman charges $7 to the consumer. However, if the latter decides to Twitter about the company, the service costs nothing at all. On the other side of the US, in New York, Parcel offers a similar service.
To avoid the problem of the closed door, there is a lot of talk in the Netherlands about click & collect. But wasn't the whole idea of online shopping that consumers don't have to leave the door for it? Isn't it high time that start-ups emerged in the Netherlands that - for a small fee - provide last-mile by appointment?
Read also: Working with fixed time windows
Editorial LogistiekProfs
