Carl Addoumieh
Thursday, October 28, 2021
With the rise in online shopping, many retailers have begun using inner-city shipping services for same-day or next-day shipping to customers in major metro areas. While this may seem like an efficient way to cut costs, some important considerations should be taken into account before beginning this practice.
In this article, our team answers some of the most frequently asked questions about inner-city shipping.
What is inner-city shipping?
An eCommerce business has the ability to reach consumers all over the world; but many businesses forget how many of those consumers live right in your town or city and how easy it can be for them to buy from you.
The term “inner city” refers to any metropolitan area where people live within 5-8 km of your store who may want to buy products they see on display at your brick-and-mortar location. Inner-city shipping is simply shipping from store to your local customer’s door.
What are the challenges of inner-city shipping?
Inner-city shipping could be challenging for many different reasons depending on what your business does, where it is located, and other factors. Here are some of the most common challenges businesses face when it comes to inner-city shipping.
Clean Air Zone and Government Regulations
Clean air zones are specific areas that the government has deemed highly polluted or a pollution threat where only a particular amount of emissions are allowed.
In the last-mile delivery providers, clean air zones have proven a challenge. The governments are strict about meeting their standards, and penalties could be harsh if businesses don’t comply. As more green zones pop up around Europe, traditional companies will need to adapt or risk losing business due in part to these new regulations.
Costs
Shipping is a time-consuming and costly process. Some of the most common costs are fleet creation and maintenance, as well as staffing and training. However, some other expenses that people tend to forget at first glance are the penalties, the burned costs during the off-season, and the technology needed for the delivery.
Technology
Finding the right inner-city shipping technology could be rather difficult and has been a major obstacle for many companies. It does not only come at a high cost, but it’s ever-changing to adapt to the fast-changing customer expectations and market trends. Finding the right technology for your business could be the biggest challenge for your inner shipping strategy.
Packaly is a tech-driven last-mile company, offering our customers an easy-to-use plug & play Delivery Dashboard, Integrations, and API that will meet your and your customers’ expectations.
What are the different inner-city shipping options?
Express Delivery
According to PWC, 86% of customers are willing to pay more for faster delivery, while 80% believe that reliable and fast delivery is vital for a good customer experience. This indicates that customers expect faster delivery as time goes, and businesses are racing to offer it. This type of delivery is usually done within 2 hours of the time the customer places the order.
Same-Day Delivery
Same-day delivery has been a growing trend over the past decade. More and more customers are expecting parcels on their door the same day. According to a McKinsey study, 5 out of 10 customers are willing to pay up to 7€ extra for same-day delivery.
Read our same-day delivery guide.
Next-Day Delivery
Capgemini Research Institute found that 73% of the customers looking for faster delivery prefer their orders delivered at a convenient time and not only fast. However, only 19% of shops find this as a priority.
At Packaly, we offer express, same-day, and next-day delivery. So, give your business a competitive advantage in the market by offering fast and convenient delivery solutions.
What are some of the biggest inner-city shipping trends?
Like any industry, inner-city shipping trends are changing over time. Some of the biggest current trends are:
Ship from store
Ship from store is currently the biggest trend in last-mile logistics. Ship from store is a great way to boost your online presence without incurring high costs or lead times. With Ship from store they can easily browse through the inventory and then receive items right when it’s convenient for them—all with no hassle of waiting in line at some regional hub warehouse just so someone could ring up an order.
Sustainability
With the rise of environmental awareness, customers are always looking for more sustainable options. The logistics industry is one of the most polluting industries and you can avoid causing even more pollution by using an alternative transportation service like electric bikes.
A World Economic Forum (WEF) study found that last-mile solutions would emit 32% greenhouse gases, and inner-city shipping would raise traffic congestion by 21%.
At Packaly, we offer a fully CO2-neutral delivery, allowing only sustainable bicycle delivery.
Speed
Trends aim to match customer expectations, and the biggest trends right now are sustainable, convenient, and fast delivery. Therefore, offering your customers these three options are essential for a successful and pleasant customer experience.
Why should I outsource my inner-city shipping?
In our article about outsourcing last-mile delivery, we take a more in-depth look on why businesses should outsource their last mile. Here are a few reasons.
Cost & reliability
With the right inner-city shipping partner, you will not only be saving on costs by paying only for the parcel that you ship, but you will also be receiving the reliability of a successful partner.
At Packaly, we offer a pay-per-parcel model and have a successful 99.97% delivery success rate.
Experience
Creating and managing your own shipping team could be rather challenging, not only by the high cost it comes with, but also when it comes to creating a new department, finding obstacles, and how to solve them. Adding the different changes in regulations, market trends, and customer expectations could be hard to adapt to.
Technology
Technology is what makes or breaks your inner-city shipping strategy. Having the right technology that allows your customers to put an order and an easy-to-use interface for your employees to process the order, as well as an efficient technology that can ensure reliable and fast delivery can be costly and challenging.
Therefore, outsourcing your delivery to a last-mile delivery partner can make the difference in the success of your customer experience.
What should I look for in my inner-city shipping partner?
We have written a comprehensive guide on how to find a reliable last-mile delivery partner for your inner-city shipping. Here are a few aspects you should take into consideration when outsourcing your inner-city delivery.
Delivery Success Rate
The delivery success rate is the percentage that a company successfully delivers a parcel at the first attempt. This is an essential KPI that points out the company’s reliability as an inner-city shipping partner. The higher the rate, the better, and at Packaly, we are at 99.97%.
Fleet Type & Size
The bigger your business, the bigger the fleet needed for your deliveries. It is essential that you ask the companies you are considering as your inner-city shipping partner about their fleet.
Knowing what type of transport methods they use could identify how sustainable their model is and how fast they can be in inner cities where the traffic congestion and the green zones make it hard for traditional vehicles and trucks to reach. The fleet’s size also shows the company’s readiness to handle the number of orders you are sending from your store.
At Packaly, we have more than 1500 Riders that only use e-bikes to deliver your parcels in a fully sustainable way.
Success Stories
Success stories are essentially the challenges that these potential companies faced with other clients and they came over. An example would be Packaly and Lush, where Packaly had to adapt to Lush’s different tooling across different shops in the Netherlands within 8 weeks.
Read more about how Packaly helped Lush boost its eCommerce sales by reaching its local customers.