Up Your Speed: The Coming of Same-Day Delivery

What do the songs Yesterday by The Beatles — written and recorded in the mid-60s — and Supersonic by Oasis — written in the early-90s — have in common? Besides the fact that The Bealthes was a heavy influence on the Britpop rockstars, both songs were both written in less than 24 hours.

Yesterday is one of the most recorded songs in history, with at least 1,600 cover versions being recorded. According to the BBC, the song is the fourth most successful song of all time in terms of royalty payments, amassing £19.5 million.

Supersonic was the debut single that started the rapid rise of rockstars from Manchester, England. The single went platinum in the UK last year.

The lesson? A lot can be done in a day.

One particular feature of the last half a year in commerce has been the growth and increasingly in-demand service of same-day delivery.

Part of Walmart’s ecommerce success in the second quarter, a rise of 97%, was its focus on same-day deliveries, which has been available at 2,730 stores.

And part of Target’s huge online sales success — an increase of 282% in April compared to last year — was driven by quicker delivery options and same-day pickups.

Squeezing time

In the (minisculely) more innocent days when we would venture outdoors without a second’s thought about airborne viruses and keeping a meter’s distance from the crowds that filter through the streets, if a red-eyed hack went around asking retailers whether they thought same-day delivery was core to their business, the replies would be a chorus of “Neeh”.

Now travel to mid-2020. If the same question was asked to the same retailers, they’d be very likely to respond with a cacophony of answers along the lines of “we’re currently working on shifting our commerce strategy and prioritizing how we can ship goods faster to our customers”, while sweating at the forehead.

Being able to promise and deliver on shipping goods to customers within 24 hours has gone from a luxury that few offered to a leading strategy to many retailers to trying to fulfill. Under regional lockdowns, getting your brand into the homes of customers as fast as possible has been a key piece of doing business.

So how exactly can a retailer or brand make that quick transition towards faster delivery times?

Look at the logistics

There are many moving pieces in the fulfillment side of business that need to be navigated so that your brand’s products can reach the fontdoor of customers on time — because promising same-day delivery on products that reach customers in 2 days is worse than offering delivery in under seven days and it arriving at the door in 4 days.

Managing expectations is key. Getting accurate and up-to-date information on inventory is your starting point. Platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud provide real-time inventory management so that you’ll always have access to the latest numbers that matter.

Keep up communication

Many of us have shifted our expectations regarding delivery times over the last couple of months. At the same time there has been so much disruption that knowing exactly what has changed and what has remanded from a brand became confusing. Is THAT store open? Can THIS store deliver now? Don’t keep customers in the dark. Talk to them and reassure them of your operations (whether they’re running operations as usual or have shifted things around).

Perhaps even personalize messages by delivering more in-depth communication with your more loyal customers to build stronger relationships with more reliable customers — something which Salesforce Commerce Cloud excels at, given it’s powers of personalization.

A helping hand

Shifting strategies can be difficult. Especially if it needs to be done fast. Getting everyone to pull in the same direction when the wind blows is a challenge. Working with the right SFCC development and strategy team means working with a team that has already worked with the most demanding brands; the most famous brands; those brands that needed to quickly change course in a direction that was dictated by external winds of the world.PS: UV is one of the world’s leading Demandware (now Salesforce Commerce Cloud) development & strategy teams. Contact us to see how we can work together.