Is Local Delivery A Game-Changer? How Does It Affect the Sales & Customer Experience

COVID-19 has changed many aspects of our lives over the past two years. Not only do we need to work at home and wear masks to spread the virus, but it has also forced us to change our spending habits.

Instead of purchasing from a brick-and-mortar store, we try to buy online if possible. Shoplazza, Shopify, Wix, etc.; we have many ways to build our own store and start earning money. That also creates an opportunity for many businesses to increase their orders with local delivery.

But what is it, and how could you benefit from it? Continue reading to find out.

What is Local Delivery & Why Should You Offer It?

For starters, let’s understand what local delivery is. You might think of it as just a standard shipping option when you first think of it. But actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

The best way to think of it is to mix shopping online and in brick-and-mortar stores. It’s basically a shipping option only available in your local area. However, just like with a brick-and-mortar store, there are times when you deliver.

And that option can be very beneficial for your business. That’s for various reasons:

• More Orders: Most people won’t want to risk their lives and get the virus. People will be more likely to buy from you since it’s more convenient.
• Reduce Costs: Instead of outsourcing the delivery to a shipping company and paying increasingly high shipping costs, you’ll do it yourself. That can help you stay more profitable and afloat during tense times.
• Build A Customer Base in Your Local Area: If you haven’t built a presence in your local area, this is a golden opportunity for it. And if it goes well, you’ll increase your sales revenue drastically.

However, local delivery isn’t something every business should do. It might be more of an expense for some than an opportunity to find new customers.

For example, if you dropship on your online store, you likely have your products outside your country. So getting a warehouse and buying products won’t help you get more business.

3-Step Guide to Successfully Implement Local Delivery

Now that you understand what local delivery is and what benefits you might get, it’s time to take action and reap the benefits. Fortunately, if you follow our three-step guide below, you’ll have yours ready in a matter of days:

Step #1 Understand the Logistics of Your Local Delivery

Unfortunately, adding local delivery isn’t something you can do by pressing a button. Instead, it requires a lot of planning! So what should you plan for? Here are a few things to consider:

• Local Delivery Responsibilities: First, you want to know who will make your local deliveries.
• Delivery Times: Unfortunately, you cannot give 24/7 local delivery. So you must think about when you’ll be delivering and when not. For example, will you deliver on weekends or not?
• Delivery Area: That is crucial to get right! If your delivery area is too large, you might overwhelm yourself, leading to a worse customer experience. So service a smaller area instead of a big one to minimize the risk of losing customers.

Step #2 Set Up Your Local Delivery

Now that you understand the logistics behind your local delivery, it’s time to set it up so you can start offering it to your customers. So to do this, you first want to set up your warehouse, ready to pick up orders and deliver them to your customers.

Then you want to set up the option in your eCommerce store. However, when adding it to your fulfillment process, make sure it’s as easy as possible. The better the experience you give them, the more likely they will buy from you again.

Step #3 Promote Your Local Delivery

If you want to see the benefits of local delivery, you must tell customers that you’re offering it! There are a couple of ways to do that:

• Email Marketing: Send out emails announcing your local delivery option. Here, you can educate them on the delivery times, pricing, and how your customers can choose those options.
• Social Media Sites: If you have a social media following, then a good thing to do is create a post announcing it to your customers. However, be brief in the description. People don’t want to read paragraphs in there. If you need to give out more information, create and redirect them to a blog post.
• Retargeting Ads: With retargeting ads, you can cheaply announce your local delivery to the people to whom it matters. But additionally, for your local clients, I suggest you advertise to those clients’ friends and family for more brand awareness.
• Local Marketing: There is no better place to promote your local delivery options than your local magazines. Just make sure that the magazines are relevant to your audience.

Conclusion

That’s how you successfully create local delivery for your store. So remember first to understand the logistics, then set it up and promote it. After that, you should start seeing orders coming in and keep your business afloat.

(Contributed by Andreas Ojala & Hermes Fang)