The Challenges of Last Mile Delivery

What is Last Mile Delivery?

Last mile delivery refers to the final leg of the delivery process where goods are transported from a local distribution center or warehouse to the end customer's doorstep. Last mile delivery is a critical part of the supply chain that directly impacts customer satisfaction and the success of the business.

Small business owners in the e-commerce or any business-to-consumer (B2C) industries need to ensure that their last mile delivery is efficient, reliable, and cost-effective. They need to take into account factors such as delivery times, delivery costs, customer experience, and the ability to scale their operations as their business grows. The UK is currently ranked 3rd in the world for online shopping, with over 3 billion parcels being delivered each year.

Last mile delivery is especially important for small businesses. It can be a significant differentiator in a crowded and competitive market. Customers expect fast and reliable delivery, and a poor delivery experience can negatively impact a business's reputation, leading to lost revenue and customer churn.

To remain competitive, small business owners need to invest in tools and technologies that can help optimise their last mile delivery operations. This might include route optimization software, real-time GPS tracking, communication tools and access to a reliable source of delivery drivers and couriers.

By investing in the right tools and technologies, businesses can ensure they create an efficient, reliable and cost-effective last mile delivery service for their customers, which can help them gain a competitive advantage in a crowded market.

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How Gigable Delivers

Over the last few years we have been providing restaurants and small business owners with a network of reliable delivery drivers and couriers. Gigable has developed a unique understanding of the competitive world of deliveries and logistics. Working with our users, Gigable has built bespoke delivery management software that is built with the needs of small business owners in mind. Gigable uniquely provides a combined offering of both a reliable network of delivery drivers and our delivery management and route optimisation software that supercharges your business with the latest features. To date, Gigable couriers have delivered well over 650,000 customer orders since our initial launch.

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Gigable is not just for food delivery

While we may have cut our teeth figuring out the uber competitive world of restaurant food delivery, we also offer solutions to businesses in other industries who need solutions that solve the challenges of last mile delivery.

A wide range of businesses already use Gigable for just that. With Gigable you find a solution that meets the needs of your business. Hire a motorcycle courier to send a large parcel for a one off job. Hire a self employed delivery driver with a van to provide a cost effective multi-drop courier service to your customers. Whatever your business needs, Gigable can offer you a flexible solution that helps you optimise costs, take control of your customer experience and boost revenue as a result.

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Gigable's Solution for Last Mile Delivery

Gigable has the capability to equip your business with everything it needs to manage and build your very own delivery service from scratch. Cut out the middle man, take control of your customer experience and reduce your total cost of delivery. Our custom built delivery management software boasts a wide range of unique features that can assist any business who needs an efficient way to manage and deliver their customer's orders. By partnering with Gigable, we can automatically determine how many drivers you need, optimally stack and assign orders to them automatically and provide your drivers with optimised delivery routes.

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The benefits of partnering with Gigable for Last Mile Delivery

By sending your customer orders to Gigable via an integration, you can get all of the following benefits:

🚗 Optimise couriers required to minimise cost of delivery

📦 Stack multiple orders with each courier to maximise courier efficiency

🎯 Optimised delivery routes to minimise delivery time to your customers

✉️ Send branded tracking links to your customers to solidify your brand and boost customer retention

📊 Unique data insights from GPS tracking and geofencing to boost operational efficiency

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How does it work

When you send your orders to Gigable, we use a custom algorithm to calculate the number of couriers you need to complete all of your deliveries on time.

Our custom algorithm aims to minimise the total delivery time for all of your orders, and by extension, seeks to find the shortest routes possible and the fewest number of couriers. This algorithm is flexible and can easily be modified to build a custom solution to suit the specific needs of your business.

To ensure you have a good solution, i.e. that orders are delivered on time whilst minimising costs, this algorithm considers a number of constraints which you have full control over. These constraints ensure you deliver your customer's orders on time whilst finding the minimum number of drivers possible to reduce the overall cost of delivery.

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These constraints include:

1. The maximum number of couriers you want to hire
2. The pick up windows for each order
3. The delivery windows for each order
4. The type of vehicle to be used
5. The maximum number of orders that can be stacked per courier

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Gigable's custom solution ensures:

⏱️ Orders are delivered on time to your customers

📦 Orders are efficiently stacked (up to your pre-defined limit per courier)

🎯 Optimised route planning that minimises total delivery time

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A typical Last Mile Delivery solution with Gigable

1. Customer orders are sent to Gigable in advance of the day of delivery
2. Gigs are automatically generated and posted on the Gigable platform. The length of each gig depends on the number of orders to deliver.
3. Local self-employed couriers who meet your requirements can apply to do these gigs.
4. Couriers are chosen by you or automatically via one of our automations.
5. When each courier starts their gig, they will check in via our mobile app and enables our GPS tracking so you and your customers can track each delivery.
6. See the live status of each order. See when and where each order has been assigned, picked up and delivered to your customers.
7. Customers receive a tracking link with your branding when the order is picked up, and again when the order is 15 minutes away.
8. Once delivered, the Gigable courier will change the order to delivered and move on to their next delivery for you.
9. Once the gig is completed, you will be prompted to pay the courier and you will have full visibility of their performance and tracking history.

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‍Deciding how many couriers you need

As part of our solution, Gigable will automatically calculate the optimal number of drivers needed on a particular day. We calculate the minimum number of couriers you need to deliver all of the orders that you send us, that satisfy constraints that you set. You have full control.

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Stacking orders for multi-drop deliveries

Gigable drivers can be assigned multiple orders for a single delivery run, otherwise known as order stacking. Our algorithm will try to stack as many orders as possible to a single driver, provided it does not violate any constraints that you set. This allows you to maximise courier efficiency. You can save significantly on sending orders by having the courier you hire do multiple deliveries in a single delivery run.

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Optimised delivery routes for couriers

Gigable offers its very own route optimisation software. We automatically calculate what the most optimal delivery route is for your couriers. This means you can have confidence in the routes each driver is assigned. Every route calculated seeks to minimise the total delivery time for each courier. This means more orders per hour, and orders getting to your customers more quickly.

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