Out for Delivery: How To Guarantee Timely Retail Deliveries

The term ‘Out for delivery’ is a crucial phase in the retail logistics chain, indicating that a customer’s order has left the fulfillment center or store and is en route to its final destination.

It is the part of fulfillment that can make or break the customer experience. Understanding what this status means is essential for retailers to manage operations, enhance customer communication, and ensure a smooth delivery process. This article delves into the intricacies of the ‘Out for Delivery’ status, its impact on various aspects of retail operations, and how technology can aid in efficient delivery management.

Read: The Retail Playbook For Thriving in an Omnichannel World

The Journey of a Retail Package

Every fulfillment journey begins the moment a customer confirms their order and transitions through several stages before arriving at its final destination. It encompasses the entire process, from purchase to delivery, and potentially returns.

The package’s journey is a physical journey that must be tracked by the retailer with regular updates, ideally in real time. That said, even customers now demand real-time updates as part of their expectations in the post-purchase experience.

Each stage of the journey requires careful coordination and tracking to ensure timely and accurate delivery. Here is a simplified outline of the typical stages a retail package goes through:

• Order Confirmation
  
• Inventory Allocation
  
• Order Picking and Packing
  
• Shipping and Handling
  
• Out for Delivery
  
• Delivery Confirmation

Retailers must be vigilant at each of these stages to prevent delays and errors that could impact customer satisfaction. The ‘Out for Delivery’ status, in particular, signifies that the package has left the final distribution center and is en route to the customer, marking the penultimate step of its journey.

Out for Delivery – How to Adhere to timelines?

When a package reaches the ‘Out for Delivery’ status, below are processes that optimize delivery service levels:

• Automate warehouse operations to cut down driver idle time

A significant issue that retailers face is drivers spending idle time at the warehouse due to slow sorting processes, leading to lesser time on the road for deliveries. This creates burnout and ultimately hurts your customer experience. Implementing a smart sorting solution that can auto sort packages based on zip code, vehicles, order type and many other parameters, will significantly bring down time to sort, personnel cost and driver time at the warehouse, leading to faster delivery times.

• Deliver on time with superior routing

When the order has left the fulfillment center, retailers with legacy systems usually provide the drivers with static routes that don’t factor in real world constraints. This puts unnecessary stress on the drivers to navigate around on-ground challenges.

An intelligent routing planning system typically routes orders dynamically by factoring in multiple real world constraints for drivers, bypassing heavy traffic, road closures and accommodating ad hoc orders on the go all while making sure existing delivery timelines aren’t compromised.

Inaccurate delivery address is another issue that at least retailers in developing and underdeveloped countries face, delaying order timelines and hurting the consumer experience. Retailers can remedy this by adopting solutions that have the capability to convert bad address quality to precise latitude and longitude coordinates.

• Bird’s eye view of fleet

Once your fleet has left the warehouse, it falls on the retailers to track them in real time to ensure the delivery goes off without a hitch. It is easier said than done. Even with a captive fleet, without a proper system in place, visibility on order statuses is still done via outdated methods like chat, phone calls and whatsapp, which could lead to delays due to connection problems, and no way to notify drivers about route breaches and delivery address changes and more. This isn’t ideal to say the least.

However, a smart logistics solution with a control tower allows operations/logistics managers to get real-time visibility of their fleet, communicate with the driver, get notified if there is a breach in routes to notify the driver of the same and make sure SLAs aren’t compromised.

Now with an outsourced fleet, retailers cannot track the performance of these carriers and have to rely on whatever the third party tells them and of course time of delivery. However, innovative carrier management solutions can help retailers track their captive, contracted and outsourced fleet all on a single dashboard to make critical carrier related decisions that improve company performance and customer experience.

• Keep things open with your customers

When an item reaches the Out for delivery status, it is crucial for retailers to effectively communicate this update to their customers. Timely and accurate notifications can enhance customer satisfaction and reduce the volume of customer service inquiries regarding order status. Implementing smart last mile solutions that offer robust tracking is key to delightful customer experience. Ideally, your system should be able to:

• Notify customers via email or SMS when their order is out for delivery and in case of delay or exceptions
  
• Offer turn-by-turn navigation for customers to track their order along with ETA
  
• Provide a tracking link for real-time updates on the delivery progress

• Proof of Delivery and Driver Experience

In the current proof of delivery process, most retailers have a paperless method, where a digital signature is taken by the delivery team and then the information is sent to the retailers system.

However, some logistics systems don’t recognize proof of delivery due to integration issues which leads to delay in recognition, ultimately affecting drivers performance and leading to chaos on the operations side of things. Partnering with vendors that provide add on mobile applications as part of the delivery solution would be ideal for drivers and companies.

An intuitive driver application can improve drivers’ experience by listing out daily to-do tasks, help him navigate to delivery and pickup locations with ease, and help companies track his performance without any room for ambiguity.

Conclusion

As the retail sector continues to navigate the challenges and opportunities of e-commerce and beyond, the focus on optimizing the ‘Out for Delivery’ phase will remain a cornerstone of success in delivering not just packages, but also in delivering customer satisfaction and loyalty.

From automating warehouse operations to leveraging smart routing systems, the technologies and strategies discussed above underscore the critical role that innovation plays in streamlining this phase of delivery.

As a result, retailers can ensure that the journey from the warehouse to the customer’s doorstep is efficient, transparent, and, most importantly, aligned with the expectations of today’s consumers. It’s a strategic investment that pays dividends not only in enhanced operational efficiency but also in building lasting relationships with customers.

Locus for Retail

Locus is currently working with top retail brands like Croma, LuluGroup international, LandMark Retail and many others to optimize order to delivery operations. Here’s what we have accomplished so far:

Total Deliveries across the globe	On-time delivery	Cost saved	In-store fulfillment	Increase in SLA compliance	Reduction in freight cost
1 billion	99.5%	$288 million+	99%	32.4%	17%

Book a Demo to see how Locus can help optimize your business’ logistics operations for cost and customer experience