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Looming Christmas Crisis Sparks Retail Delivery Innovation

The holiday season generates about $658B in consumer spending each year, but a shifting landscape and calendar crisis has retailers rethinking their strategy this year.

In the hyper-competitive age of Amazon, retailers are struggling to meet consumer expectations of free same-day and next-day delivery. In fact, 49 percent of shoppers are more inclined to buy a product if the retailer offers same-day delivery.

Nearly 9 percent of consumers procrastinate until Christmas Eve when it comes to holiday shopping, according to the National Retail Federation. With Christmas Eve falling on a Sunday for the first time in a decade, retailers are scrambling to find a cost-effective same-day and next-day delivery solution as they prepare for the busy holiday season.

Amid a backdrop of record retail store closures poised to surpass the 2008 Great Recession, losing just a fraction of holiday sales hurts the bottom line.

Traditional delivery platforms like USPS, UPS and FedEx do not make regular deliveries on Sundays, which leaves retailers looking to alternatives. Roadie is an app-based community that taps into unused space in vehicles of drivers already on the road — a captive fleet of employees, customers, and local commuters who are already driving to and from stores — for enabling a new “collaborative delivery” model that offers compelling per-trip economics.

With 91 percent of all holiday travel happening by car, Roadie is a smarter solution to getting things where they need to go this holiday season – from handling Christmas tree delivery to sending gifts from the store to home.  Even on Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

Benefits to Retailers:

  • A new collaborative delivery model that leverages existing resources. By tapping into the 1 billion sq. feet of unused space in cars already on the road, Roadie helps retailers create a cost-effective delivery service that exceeds customer expectations, increases sales, and has a minimal impact on margins.
  • A national network of drivers. Roadie has nearly 50,000 drivers nationwide that offer photographic chain of custody, real-time tracking, and security code delivery confirmation.
  • More cost effective. Roadie is on-the-way delivery, not on-demand, making it more efficient and affordable. Most on-demand or courier-style delivery providers have higher fixed costs, limited geographic footprints and restrictions on package size.

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