Secrets to success in same-day delivery
It ain’t easy bein’ green – or is it.
These hardware store delivery guys in the photo are clad in fluorescent green safety vests for an obvious reason: To be visible and stay safe during daily deliveries.
Team members from hardware stores everywhere across the U.S. make same-day deliveries to customers – that’s what they do.
They log lots of road time too, and spend plenty of hours jumping out of vans and trucks to make drop-offs, with the goal to get the item, large or small, into the driveways and garages of the buyers on the same calendar day it was ordered.
Two hardware store owners divulge their tips – let’s call them secrets – for successful same-day delivery operations. They share challenges, wins and exceptions to delivering on the same day.
Chad Ayers, owner of Allendale True Value in Allendale, Michigan, said that, “although a large majority of our items being delivered are bulk goods, for instance large goods like mulch, lumber and retaining wall blocks, we do our fair share of smaller items too.”
One of the big challenges with deliveries, he said, was the struggle to manage the drivers themselves.
In the spring season, Ayers said, “we can pretty much turn deliveries all day everyday, however that season is short lived so the balance becomes how do you keep a driver busy with other tasks and responsibilities.”
He said they are working through some ideas on offering free or reduced delivery to their hometown zip code; to try and assure that his business is always taking care of their local supporters.
Talking about what qualifies for delivery, and what is excluded, he said, “there are not many things that don’t qualify.”
Some customers may have logistical challenges, he pointed out, some may just prefer it be dropped in their driveway versus picking it up, and others just realize time is money and ordering online and having a store deliver the goods is giving time back to customers who don’t have much of it free.
“Our goal is to create a solution, for whatever the problem is, for our customer.”
Secret to success
Ayers identified the secret to same day delivery success.
“We have been delivering goods for many years – the key to our most recent success and efficiency has been creating a delivery calendar that allows for trucks to be accounted for based on time slots,” the hardware store owner said.
“This allows us to adjust on the fly with what we have available for drivers and trucks to assure we don’t over promise and under deliver.
“There are many types of softwares out there. We simply use a free calendar scheduling software called Calendly. I use it personally for my own schedule as well,” he said.
Changes in the tech-driven world today have brought about new ways to deliver.
Ayers said, “100% they have.”
The owner said they’ve worked through paper calendars, outlook calendars and other various ways of keeping track of schedules.
The way they are utilizing the software calendar product has “worked great for us and created a solution that makes us much more efficient than prior years. It opens the door to allow for many to schedule and one to deliver versus having to have dedicated staff to do both.”
He offers a tip for other hardware store owners looking to develop their own same day delivery.
“In my opinion, automation is the opportunity for the best experience,” he said.
“You must have a website that supports the option and a system that simplifies the driver scheduling in order to provide both a good experience for the customer and the store team. As soon as it becomes clunky, complicated or allows for a not so great experience to the customer, it negatively reflects your business.”
The ‘many hats’ scenario
Adam Barden, owner of two retail hardware stores, Vassar True Value and Frankenmuth True Value, both in Michigan, shared his own secrets to same day delivery success.
“Our paint business is our primary driver for delivery. We have a strong paint contractor base, and that customer requires same day delivery in many cases. We have developed our systems to accommodate these needs.”
He made a deeper dive into the topic of same-day delivery, pointing to the challenges in staffing.
“We need to have adequate staff on hand to make a delivery that may come up at the last minute. We are not big enough to have dedicated delivery staff, so we have staff with other responsibilities that are making deliveries for us,” he said.
The owner said that for their paint contractors they do not have requirements for deliveries, they handle those requests as they come and do their best to accommodate.
Barden said, “for website orders, we have a flat home delivery fee of $5 with no purchase minimum at this time. We do not get a large number of delivery requests from the website at this time, if that starts to change, we may need to adjust our fee schedule.”
He relies on some technology but still prefers good old elbow grease.
“We use our POS system to schedule deliveries that are planned in advance, otherwise we are not using any apps for delivery scheduling, we still do it the old fashioned way,” he said.
Barden also shared a recent example from his delivery team.
“We recently delivered an eight-foot folding table to a customer that allowed us to win the business because they could not buy it and have it delivered at the cost we offered, due to the $5 flat delivery charge,” he said.
He offers a tip to other hardware store owners.
“I think that you have to think about who your customer is and what their needs are. For us, retail customers are not a big driver of home delivery – but contractors are,” said the owner.
“We would need to alter our delivery system significantly if we had a large number of retail customer delivery orders,” he said.
Some final words of wisdom about same-day delivery from these two owners.
Barden said: “It is something we need to offer and it probably won’t add as much difficulty to your operations as you might expect. I would recommend offering it as an experiment and see how it goes for your business.”
Ayesrs said: “In today’s ‘want it now’ world it is almost a necessity. With that said, we’re competing not so much with ‘same day’ as we are with the next day or within a couple days.”
He said, “if you can figure out how to provide it locally for your main customer group – which is who helps us all exist – you will help combat the retailers that do provide it.”
Who else delivers same day – and what can’t be delivered same day
From their website, the retail chain of stores Tractor Supply, founded in 1938 and based in Brentwood, Tennessee, writes that they now offer their customers same-day and next-day delivery on almost the entire inventory in all their stores – nearly 15,000 items. Those items, said the company, include livestock feed, dog food, power tools, tillers, chicken coops and more.
The company wrote that eligible items ordered before 2 p.m. local time will be delivered the same day as when the order was placed. However, eligible items ordered after 2 p.m. local time will be delivered the following day after the order was placed.
Some items they listed that are not eligible for their firm’s free Neighbor’s Club same day delivery include: Gun safes; 60- to 80-gallon air compressors; items requiring age verification; items that require a local or state title or registration; items weighing more than 400 pounds, among others.
Also, The Home Depot and Lowe’s both offer same-day delivery. On the Home Depot website it offers delivery same-day if ordered before noon.
Lowe’s announced it is expanding its same-day delivery service nationwide for orders placed on Lowes.com and the Lowe’s mobile app in a partnership with OneRail, an omnichannel fulfillment solution. [Related article HERE.]
