Grocery Delivery: How to experience continued growth after the pandemic ends
Use enhanced location data to earn customer loyalty and retain a substantial client base
Grocery delivery has been around for a while, but it wasn’t until the coronavirus pandemic struck that the industry gained significant momentum. Before masks and social distancing were the norm, U.S. online grocery sales totaled $1.2 billion during August 2019, but in June 2020 sales spiked to $7.2 billion.
The change in consumer behavior has profited many local and national grocery delivery services, but the accelerated volume of orders, especially in urban and rural areas, has also shed light on some challenges the industry faces.
In high-density areas, where many people live in large, multi-unit structures, normal GPS only takes drivers to the outside of a building. Delivery drivers must find nearby parking, building entrances, and unit locations through trial and error. The same is true for rural areas where private roads are unmarked and drivers are left to find a consumer’s address without GPS assistance.
Consumers who order perishable goods that need refrigeration or freezing, must wait for orders to arrive. Inaccurate or large delivery windows can disrupt their day-to-day schedule and cause them to form a negative association with the delivery service.
Since the boom in grocery delivery will begin to wane as restrictions are lifted and the public has access to vaccines, only services that gain customer loyalty now will benefit from the permanent shift in consumer behavior. As customers look for quick and reliable grocery delivery, it’s critical that services use precise location data to provide accurate delivery windows and quick service.
Benefits of precise location data
Access to precise location data can help a grocery delivery service provide clients with competitive delivery times and smaller, more accurate delivery windows. For large services that send drivers out with full truckloads each day, clear navigation to each delivery’s drop-off location can help drivers complete 20% more deliveries per hour, especially on apartment-heavy routes.
Drivers who use enhanced data location receive directions all the way to a customer’s front door. Not only do drivers with this data experience less frustration on the job, but they are also able to consistently deliver fresher groceries throughout the day.
How to add enhanced location data to your GPS
Presently, Beans Route is the only delivery and business management solution that provides navigation to within 10ft. of a delivery’s location, even at large, multi-unit dwellings. No other company in the US has this data, including the Federal Government.
As a complete, end-to-end delivery and business management solution, Beans Route provides much more than industry-leading location data. Other advantages include:
- AI-powered route planning and dispatch
- Timesheets and scheduling
- Fully integrated electronic logging device (ELD) solution
- Clock in/clock out
- Route progress in dispatcher
- Device agnostic
- Ability to drop pins and draw maps
- 3-minute driver training
- 24/7 US-based support
- No contracts
To learn more about Beans Route or to see a demo, contact support@beansroute.ai or visit www.beansroute.ai.
Conclusion
While many challenges in the grocery delivery industry exist, the issue of insufficient location data is largely overlooked, even though it expressly affects a customer’s satisfaction with a service. This problem is often neglected because business owners are unaware a solution even exists.
As a grocery delivery service provider, precise data location will help you step out as an industry leader because it allows you to provide some of the shortest delivery times found on the market with narrow delivery windows. You have a unique opportunity to benefit from the upswing in consumer demand. Use this time to gain customer loyalty so you retain a large client base after the pandemic subsides.
For further information, please contact a delivery and transportation expert at sales@beansroute.ai.
