In this guide, you’ll take a look at how to optimize your drink delivery, from the first to the last mile.
In fact, these techniques will allow you to improve your supply chain, cut costs, so more people buy your beverages.
All thanks to optimization.
What you read here will help you move your offer online.
Reach more customers. And take advantage of new opportunities post coronavirus.
And we’ll walk you through the whole process, one step at a time.
Let’s get started.
The beverage industry is a large and mature market.
When combined, the revenue of alcoholic drinks and the revenue of non-alcoholic drinks is $2,409,439 million worldwide.
But unlike food delivery, the online sale and delivery of drinks account for only a fraction of that revenue stream.
In fact, only 2.4% of all beverages are sold online, and only 1% of total alcohol sales.
Luckily, the state of delivery in time of the coronavirus is changing things.
So much, that according to research from Nielsen, online alcohol sales are up 243%.
This is causing most drink producers and retailers to rethink their offers.
From large distributors to small breweries and organic juice producers, more and more companies are moving their offer online.
Mind you, most of them still do business at their physical stores.
Only now, it also serves as a pick-up point for the delivery of online orders.
But online beverage delivery comes with a few concerns.
The most significant concern among consumers is the sale of alcoholic beverages to minors.
According to the Washington Post, Uber Eats and their drivers have been delivering cocktails and alcohol without IDing or even seeing the customer first.
But those aren’t the only concerns.
If you are to successfully move (at least half of) your sales to the website, it’s necessary to overcome other obstacles associated with delivery and fulfilment.
Your customers are thirsty.
And it’s your responsibility to quench their thirst as fast as possible.
On the one hand, any type of food and beverage delivery is time-sensitive.
Significant delays can affect the quality of your product.
That’s why you have to speed up your delivery.
After all, it’s what customers want.
If you offer delivery at the local last-mile, it’s important to start managing in real-time.
This can help you cut time per delivery, so you can handle more deliveries at the fraction of the cost.
If you distribute beverages at a much larger scale, speed can allow you to offer same-day delivery.
And that can help you co-exist with much larger competitors, like Amazon, Walmart, or Wholefoods.
Order allocation is an important part of maintaining quality control and customer experience.
Allocating orders correctly means delivering the right brand, on the right day, at the right location.
Tracking inventory relies as much on your supply chain network, as it does monitoring the flow of goods.
When you don’t have a clear view of how many products are moving upstream vs. downstream, you can end up using up all your stock.
If that happens, it is difficult to maintain fulfilment and delivery volumes.
Not to mention, without reliable inventory tracking, you won’t have sufficient insight to improve last-mile delivery when demand exceeds your capacity.
A supply chain has well-defined steps.
It has a start and a finish.
It has the first and the last mile.
That is why looking at the entire process from a wide and a narrow-angle is key to identifying opportunities on how to improve it.
Without a complete overview of all operations, your organization can miss out on key opportunities to optimize.
Visibility is the solution.
It gives you complete control over how you produce, source, and distribute drinks across the entire supply chain network.
In turn, you will have the range to fulfil any order volumes despite the demand.
Delivery tracking allows you to know the location of every delivery at every moment.
This ensures a seamless transition from pick-up to drop-off.
It even lets you share that information with your customers for better customer experience.
Communication determines the success of each delivery.
Equipping teams with technology that lets them instantly share and access data, allows you to build an agile delivery operation.
It also empowers your staff to extend the line of communication directly to your customers, so they can provide a better service.
Monitoring performance is critical for reducing operational waste.
It helps you find opportunities for optimization.
Measuring key metrics in delivery logistics like the average cost per delivery is vital for this process.
Without key performance indicators (KPIs), you won’t be able to make adjustments and test them against benchmarks.
Delivery is an active process.
Despite your best efforts, sometimes things can happen that are out of your control.
For example, a customer may receive the wrong label of spirit.
A pallet of soft-drinks may arrive at the wrong store.
Or a case of wine may be damaged en route to the customer’s restaurant.
Reverse logistics helps you overcome all of these issues.
It allows you to turn failure into opportunity, so you can keep costs low while maintaining high customer satisfaction at the same time.
From food delivery for restaurants to field service operations, technology is transforming how businesses manage deliveries.
And software is a key part of that disruption.
But what is delivery management software, exactly?
Simply put, it is an end-to-end solution for handling logistics.
It allows you to manage, optimize, and perform all tasks related to your delivery process.
Typically, companies see it as route optimization software.
But it’s also much more than that.
Yes, it allows you to automatically plan deliveries around the most efficient routes.
But it also lets you, for example, increase the route density of each delivery run.
Drivers and field agents can handle more drop-offs and, thus, reduce your cost per delivery.
It can minimize drive time per delivery and speed up fulfilment.
For example, companies that deliver time-sensitive orders can ensure the speedy delivery of drinks like ready-to-order cocktails.
But delivery management software also allows you to supply beverages to stores, restaurants, and other businesses.
The tool can handle multiple tasks, teams, fleets, and vehicles regardless of size, scale, or order volume.
For example, it can just as easily handle ten fleets of dozens of vehicles, as it can one fleet with only one vehicle.
But it offers many other capabilities:
With visibility at the operational, as well as the cellular level (task, driver, route, account, or customer), you will never miss an opportunity to evaluate performance.
And that’s the key to optimization.
And if you are only just now thinking about delivering drinks to customers, it’s time to get started.
Now, it’s your turn.
If you haven’t already, this is the year to set up a delivery service.
After all, Henry Ford said:
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
So, don’t wait for your customers to come to you.
Bring drinks directly to your customers.
If you have delivery but you need help scaling, use these proven delivery tactics to grow your operations.
And remember to optimize your operations.
Let technology do the job for you.
Find opportunities for optimization. Make adjustments. Analyze performance. Repeat.
In no time at all, you will have a beverage delivery service that will run at maximum capacity and your customers will adore.
And to help you get started, we have a great offer on the table. Ready to optimize your drink delivery and pick-up with delivery management software?
We can help.
We have everything you need to start improving your delivery.