are you gonna get more repeat customers?
And I think it varies depending on the type of product that you're selling.
And is it a product that does, you know, result in people purchasing it more
often, um, and is delivering, gonna make it better for that, for your customer?
Welcome to the e-Commerce Podcast with me your host, Matt Edmundson.
Now, the E-Commerce podcast is a show all about helping you deliver e-commerce wow.
And to help us do just that, I'm chatting with today's guest, Steve Orenstein,
from Locate2u about how you can master.
Oh yes, same day delivery.
We're gonna be talking about how we can do that in our own e-commerce business.
But before Steve and I dive into our conversation, let me share with you
a podcast pick, a previous episode or two that I think you might enjoy
from the e-commerce podcast archives.
The first one, given today's topic is how to build a fulfillment infrastructure
that will scale with your business.
Our conversation was with
Harry Drapuch, which was
a
phenomenal conversation.
So do check that out.
And actually, I did an episode way back, which probably has still some relevance
though on understanding the real costs of e-commerce shipping for your business.
You can access our podcast picks and our entire podcast archive for free on
our website at ecommercepodcast.net.
Plus, if you're there, sign up for the newsletter.
We will send all the links to our podcast picks along with the notes and the links.
Uh, from today's conversation with Steve, they all get delivered
straight to your inbox at no cost to you, which is pretty amazing.
Plus we'll email you every week when we do a new episode, so you stay up to date.
Now, are you struggling to grow your e-commerce business?
Do you feel like you are constantly spinning your wheels trying to
figure out what to focus on next?
Well, let me tell you, I have been there and I know how frustrating that is, and
that's why I love, love, love the cohort.
Oh yes, the e-commerce cohort, which sponsors this show and the e-commerce
cohort has brought to you a free resource called E-Commerce Cycles.
It's a mini course which walks you through the proven framework that I
use in all my e-com businesses, uh, for building successful e-commerce businesses.
I'm gonna show you the specific steps I take in my own e-commerce
company so you can put those to practice exactly how I do them.
And the good news is, of course, as you would expect, just like
the podcast, it's completely free.
You don't even need an email address to get access to it.
Uh, you can find out more at ecommercecycles.com, e-commerce
cycles as in a bike, you know, the cycle of e-commerce.
Uh, ecommercecycles.com.
Uh, to access this free, to access this free training and get started today, it
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Wow.
To your customers with the help of e-commerce cohort, so do check that out.
Now, that's the sponsor.
Let's talk a little bit about today's guest.
Steve is a born entrepreneur who blazed his trail by Ditching University
at 19 to build his own business.
Connect2Field.
After successfully selling it to Fleetmatics, he set his sights on
revolutionizing same day delivery with the groundbreaking Zoom2u platform.
And now also the Locate2u platform.
With over 120,000 happy customers ranging from SMEs to corporate
giants like DHL, Bunnings and Nespresso, Steve is shaking up the
delivery world one parcel at a time.
And given that this is such a hot topic, uh, and always will be a hot
topic with e-commerce cuz we are delivering something at least, quite
looking forward to this conversation.
Steve's great to have you on the show.
Thanks for joining us Bud.
How you doing?
Good, Matt.
Great to be here.
And it is fair to say, uh, if those aren't those of you listening to the podcast,
which is I know the vast majority, like 99.9% of people listen to it, you
won't see the fact that it is pitch black, uh, for Steve and that you are
on the other side of the world, right?
That's, that's it, yeah's, uh, just after 10:30 at night in Sydney.
But, uh, yeah, great, great to be here.
It's funny, the different time zone things still.
I, I still, um, I still can't get my head around how it works, especially
when you fly from LA to New Zealand that somehow you, you, you, you
kind of miss a day of your life and I'm not quite sure how it works.
Yeah.
Or or the other way you gain a day.
Yeah.
It's like, what, how did I do that?
I don't know.
I've just gone back in time.
It's very, very peculiar.
Do you travel to the states much?
I do.
Yeah, definitely.
Um, in fact, all over, um, we've got a team actually in Manila and we've got
a team in India, so definitely, yeah.
Spend a little bit of time there and also to the US to meet, meet with customers.
Yeah.
And so you, you're quite used to this time zone hopping thing.
Yes, definitely.
Yeah.
So we read there in your bio, Steve, that you dropped outta uni at 19.
Uh, which is, uh, it's not an unheard of story, is it with anyone that's a little
bit entrepreneurial, but what can I ask?
What were you studying at uni and why it was so bad that
you decided to drop out at 19?
Yeah.
Um, I, I started, uh, studying IT and so, uh, and also I was doing
a, a business degree at the same time, so we're doing two degrees.
Um, yeah, and I guess what I started, I really wanted to run a business.
Um, I dunno why, but I just did.
And, um, A lot of, like the software side of things that we were learning
and even the programming that they were teaching was just quite out of date.
Mm.
Um, and so after doing that for a little while, you know, I had an
opportunity to go and I just decided to pause it and go and work for someone.
And at that stage ended up, um, taking over the business
that I was, I was working in.
And, um, yeah.
So I, I planned to go back, but uh, never went back.
Never went back.
It's interesting, isn't it?
It's, uh, and, and why would you need to now, right.
So yes, fast forward, uh, a few years and we have, um, locate2u.
So for those that maybe don't know what that is, um, listening to the
show, just give a quick background on the company and then we're gonna,
we're gonna jump into the whole conversation about delivery and e-com.
Yeah, sure.
Um, so 2019 I started a business called Zoom2u, and essentially it's Uber
for delivery based here in Australia.
Um, we operate in mo all the major capital cities, um, providing a same
day delivery experience, um, designed for e-commerce and retail businesses,
but also for, um, lots of others.
You know, small businesses and consumers.
Um, and so that business, you know, drivers have an app on their phone.
They can choose to accept bookings as they come through.
Um, but the customer gets that live tracking experience so they can see
when that delivery is actually arriving.
And also on the same day.
And as we were building that business, uh, what we found was a lot of
companies were running their own fleet of their own drivers, but were
wanting to use the technology that we'd built inside of the Zoom2u business.
Um, and so then we started building the locate2u product.
Um, and today we now sell that across, across the globe.
We've got over 500 customers globally.
Um, and that helps companies that are running their own fleet
of their own drivers, allowing them to do things like route
optimization, um, but also be able to.
Send a live tracking link to their customer so the customer can see the
live location of, of the driver arriving.
And so I think, you know, when I started the business, it was all
around making sure that you tell the customer when you're arriving.
And in most e-commerce stores today, even when you go through the checkout process,
the, the consumer never actually knows when that product's actually gonna arrive.
And I think over, you know, in the future that's gotta change.
And I think Amazon has done that pr pretty well in most parts of the world.
Um, but most of these small, medium-sized e-commerce businesses still at the point
of checkout you, it's gonna go through, you know, your typical postal networks or
maybe a courier company, but the consumer never has an idea of when that's arriving.
And often they're not gonna get that on the same day.
And, um, yeah, we, we, we set about solving that and initially
just in Australia with, with our network through Zoom2u.
but now doing that, uh, on a global basis with our locate2u product.
Well, that sounds fascinating.
And, and, and let's jump in.
I mean, you mentioned the e-commerce business, you know, and.
You go through the checkout and it's still the biggest reason
for cart abandonment is um, yes.
Hi.
Things like hidden shipping fees or I don't know when it's going to arrive.
It's correct.
It's not clear on the site, right?
Yeah.
Um, And I guess for a lot of entrepreneur, uh, a lot of e-commerce
businesses, they're at the mercy of the couriers, which they use.
So you take, correct.
Um, our e-comm brand, for example, we distribute all over the world.
So I'm not, I'm, I've not got my own worldwide delivery network yet.
Maybe one day I'll compete with Amazon when we get big in, um, but
I, I ju I just don't have that.
So I'm at the mercy in a lot of ways at um, I'm at the mercy of our, our couriers.
Um, and so it's, is it, it's a little bit more complex to say this is
exactly what it's gonna arrive, right?
Definitely, definitely.
Yeah.
And so I think it is, um, it's still complicated today and I think it's, it's
gonna get simpler in, into the future.
But I think it's also dependent on different types of products and, you
know, whether it's a retail store or whether, you know, it's certain types of
product lines, um, you know, if you're selling a relatively low value item,
um, it doesn't make sense that you're gonna do like a fast delivery, cuz the
economics does, doesn't make sense.
But if you're selling a high value item, then you can do a lot of, you
know, Smarter things around how you can actually do that delivery and
having multiple carriers available at the point of checkout to choose
giving the customer choice as to which particular carrier that they're gonna
use, um, and then being able to select something that's gonna be faster.
Yeah.
And so what kind of things make sense then for same day delivery?
Um, I mean, we see, I think it varies between different types of
products, but, you know, I've seen great success even with, you know,
some larger items like furniture, um, which, you know, high value value,
electronics, you know, mobile phones, um, yeah, all those types of things.
But then, you know, you might have, you know, a, a florist and baked goods.
Um, those all definitely make sense.
I think, you know, any product.
That is over $50 and you're able to do, um, you're able
to get volume of that product.
So if you're only selling one of those items a day, then it makes it
harder to make same day delivery.
Make sense?
But if you are able to put through these amounts of volume mm-hmm.
And potentially it's also about restricting the delivery area that
you're actually offering that from.
And so if you're running a retail store or even e-commerce, you say, okay, well
within a 10 kilometer radius of that particular location, then I'm gonna be
able to offer a same day service, and you're gonna batch them into areas.
Uh, and I would always start by thinking about batching it into time windows.
Um, often people make the mistake of saying, I'm gonna turn on three
hour delivery from the time of when that order arrives and have
it delivered within three hours.
And that's generally not gonna be practical.
Um, because you, you just dunno when those orders are all gonna come in,
you're not gonna be able to consolidate many orders together and you're not
gonna get the efficiencies around getting the price as low as you possibly can.
Whereas if you batch it into Windows, then you know, okay, we're gonna have
three windows throughout the day.
You might start with one window, might be between.
Six and nine o'clock at night.
And then orders come in through the day, the customer knows that at nine
o'clock, you know, before nine o'clock, they'll have that product delivered.
They'll actually be at home cause they've left work.
Uh, and then you can actually, you know, deliver it at a cost effective price.
Uh, one of, I guess one of the biggest things that we see from
e-commerce businesses is around, wanting to do faster delivery, but
wanting to do that, cost effectively.
And the way you do that is by batching those orders together.
And so, It's typically the distance in how far that driver's having to
travel is how much it's gonna cost you.
Yeah.
And if you're able to give that driver 10, 20, 50 parcels in one go,
then, and they're able to do that in a, in a short period area, then you
can drive that cost to be, you know, at, at sometimes as cheap as what
you're doing with your local courier.
Mm-hmm.
It's interesting, isn't it?
I mean, I, um, I'm very aware that when it comes to e-comm, the
final mile is a big thing, right?
Yep.
We, the last mile they call it, don't they?
So you, um, especially if you're using like a National Courier service, you know
that what happens in that last mile is, is usually the most important, critical,
and what you're doing in effect is you're saying, well, if, if you're selling those
locally, why, why give it to someone else?
That's right.
You can sort it out yourself.
That's that's right.
And you can, you can get that too.
To somebody's house.
So yeah.
What kind of number numbers start to make sense, Steve?
Because, um, I, I get that if I'm doing baked goods, if I'm doing a florist, if
I'm doing expensive electronics and I've got a good local market, you know, people
are buying online and I'm delivering stuff, what sort of numbers makes sense?
You talked about volume.
Um,
yeah, I mean, I look at it in, in one way is that, Every e-commerce
business spends a lot of money getting a customer to your site.
Mm-hmm.
And then the delivery experience is generally poor.
And so you don't get that repeat order.
And so I think the way in which e-commerce businesses should think about
it is, I wanna provide a really great delivery experience, particularly for
the people that are locally around me.
And I'm gonna get a whole bunch of word of mouth from that, and I'm
gonna get a whole bunch of people coming back and repeat ordering.
Depending on the type of product you're selling.
If you're selling a product that's just like a one-off
purchase, then probably not.
Yeah.
But if you are a product that people are gonna keep on buying, then if you can
make that delivery experience really good, then you're gonna be able to drive volume.
And so it may mean in the, in the early days of starting this, you may lose
some money in, in starting this out.
but then you should be able to get to some scale where you make
it, um, where it makes sense.
And so, um, I, I think even at, you know, 20 or 20 orders a day, you can
actually do this cost effectively, right?
Um, and you might, you might start with a smaller radius.
You might just say, you're gonna only offer this in, you know,
within five kilometers, which means you're gonna drive density.
Um, and so the driver's not gonna have to travel as far, they can get all those
deliveries done within a couple of hours.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, you've got this fixed cost to actually do that
every single day of the week.
That's really interesting.
So, uh, five kilometers for our American listeners.
Uh, about 3.5 miles, I'm guessing somewhere around there.
3, 3, 3.
About 3, 3, 3 and a half miles somewhere.
Anyway, um, five clicks I think is the military term, isn't it?
Uh, it's uh, it's a five click radius.
Um, so, so I mean, this is really interesting, isn't it?
So if you are getting sort of 20, 30 local orders a day within.
Uh, a five kilometer, five click radius, three and a half mile radius from your
business, then actually you're, you should probably start looking at something like
same day delivery because you are, you're gonna deliver a much better service and
the costs, um, of it aren't too dissimilar to what you would've been paying anyway.
Is that what I'm understanding?
That's right.
Yeah.
Def definitely, definitely.
And you know, with most courier companies, usually you're
paying for multiple parcels.
Yeah.
Um, and so there's a fee every time there's numerous parcels, whereas if
you're just running your own fleet of your own drivers, you're probably paying maybe
a per drop rate or you're paying an hourly rate for that particular contractor.
Yeah.
Um, and so, you know, you're not paying extra for those additional parcels.
So often it, it, it can be really cost effective.
So how do you go about, um, I mean, I, I get that if, if I'm listening to this
thinking, actually, I, for, for me, I.
If I was in London, I can see straight away that this would make sense for us.
You know, we could do some kind of something in London, same day delivery.
Yeah.
Uh, which would be really interesting.
Um, but how do, how would I go about, I.
Finding, maybe this is is a silly question, but I I'll
ask it anyway cuz Why not?
How do I go about finding people that I am paying to deliver this service?
Am I connecting with Uber drivers?
Am I connecting with taxi drivers?
What, what's the sort of the, yeah.
What things have you, you found work there?
Yeah.
Uh, in any country, every country it's, it's different.
Um, but you know, the one thing that I.
Is probably common across all of them is, you know, Facebook groups really good.
Mm-hmm.
There are lots and lots of, uh, Uber Facebook groups, so, Um, and
Uber driver fa like Facebook groups.
So you can actually join those.
You can actually post something in there saying you're looking for a driver in
this area, and you'll get inundated.
Um, I'd suggest you get, you put up a form of, of some sort of a link
to a form where you can actually, I can fill out that information.
Um, but yeah, just generally getting drivers is now relatively easy.
Um, that's easy part of, of our business.
In the Zoom2u side of things, um, yeah, there's d lots of different sites,
you know, whether it's going on to.
There's, you know, general recruitment sites, you can post jobs on there.
For drivers, it's, it's pretty easy to get drivers.
Okay.
Um, and so that's, I think that's the easy part.
And it's just finding, you know, good ones and it's probably thinking about,
you know, what is the way of being able to identify what is a good driver or
what's a, what's gonna be a poor driver.
One of the things that we did inside of Zoom2u very early on is that we actually
made it like, and we've got thousands of drivers on our Zoom2u platform.
Um, we actually made the onboarding process complicated and we made them
go through a series of steps purposely.
Okay.
Because it ident, it allowed us to identify whether or not the
driver could follow instructions.
And if they could follow instructions, then they're gonna be, you know,
great at being able to deliver.
Cuz that's what they have to do is, you know, follow instructions typically.
Um, and whereas they couldn't follow the instructions and we knew that they
couldn't quite understand things and we knew that we were probably gonna have
difficulties in them actually being a driver on the, on the Zoom2u platform.
Yeah, that's really fascinating.
So, just to clarify then, with the, the same day delivery service, if it's
something that you are listening, you know, listening to this podcast and you
are thinking, listen, now I wonder if I could make this work in certain cities.
This is not a case of getting, um, Uh, my branded vans and drivers
with my branded uniforms, like UPS.
This is a case of actually I'm gonna tap into a network, which is already there.
These guys have already got cars.
They're already used to delivering stuff.
I'm just gonna go recruit them and they're going to use
some technology like Locate2u.
They're gonna have an app on there.
Um, and just like they do with an Uber job, I'm guessing they, we, we as a
company put out, we need this parcel.
Taken from here to here, and this is a route you're gonna go down.
Are you gonna drop all these parcels off?
Who wants to do it?
That's right.
Exactly right.
Okay.
So, and this is, and this, uh, this batching that you talk about is
obviously a much better way than just doing it on a per job basis.
Yeah, def definitely.
So you definitely wanna batch it because that's gonna give you a real efficiency
in being able to, you know, just even doing the pick and pack, you're
gonna know you've got these cutoff time windows when you can do that.
Um, but then it means you've got the dri one or two or five drivers
turning up and you're handing out these delivery runs to these drivers.
Say, here's your, your batch of bookings to do is your route.
And they know it's the most efficient route.
And so, you know, in the old days the drivers used to have to figure out which
way they were gonna do these deliveries.
And you know, you'd manually figure out which driver's gonna do them.
Now you don't have to do any of that, that that technology handles
all of that and now Locate2u product does that really efficiently.
That's fantastic.
So you said, Steve, that was the easy part, getting the drivers, which means
there's a not so easy part and I'm curious to know what the not so easy part is.
I mean, I think you're, it's a, it's a change to the way
in which you're doing things.
Um, and, and often I see conversations with, you know, the people that are
running logistics inside of these e-commerce businesses, particularly
sort of medium to larger e-commerce businesses, probably don't wanna do this.
Mm-hmm.
Because it's like they have to change their entire process for Pick and Pack.
Yeah.
They have to prioritize these orders.
Um, they don't want to necessarily do this, do this work.
And often where we've seen it being successful, it's been driven from the
CEOs of these e-commerce businesses who are like, actually this is.
Really important for our customers to have this.
And this is what's gonna actually make our, our e-commerce business,
you know, be better than the other, better than our competitors.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and I think, you know, over the next five years, it's gonna be really
important for e-commerce businesses, the ones that are gonna be really
successful, the ones that are gonna have a really great delivery experience.
And, um, you know, that point of checkout is gonna be really important to tell the
customer when the product's arriving.
Yeah, that's, that's interesting, isn't it?
So can I, I get that it's gonna be complex to put into my system
and I'm, my brain's buzzing Steve.
Right?
So I've got a bunch of questions for you now.
Um, and I'm, I'm thinking of the, the questions are more like how, so I'm asking
myself, how would I, how would I implement this in my own eComm business, right?
Yeah.
Um, so my distribution, my pick and pack centers in Liverpool, we don't
do a, we do some local deliveries in Liverpool, but I can't imagine that
adding same day delivery to Liverpool.
Postcodes is gonna transform my business overnight.
Just the nature of what we do, right?
Yeah, sure.
Um, I, I get that there are some businesses that might work, but if I
could do it, like I say in London, well that's a different category altogether.
Now the last thing I want to do is go and set up a distribution center in London.
Um, quite frankly, yes.
Um, So, have you seen it work where there's a two stage process where I
say, right, actually all the orders today that have come in from London?
Yep.
Rather than sending those out individually to clients, I'm gonna put those in
one big, massive box and I'm gonna send them down to, uh, the driver.
In London.
Correct.
Uh, whoever, you know, has agreed to do the job.
Um, and I, I send them out, so I maybe send 20 parcels to this guy, 20 parcels
to that guy, and then they distribute them the sort of the final mile.
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely.
Am I, am I creating a rod for my back?
Making it more complicated doing something like that?
Or actually, have you seen companies do that and it work well?
Yeah, no, I've, I've definitely seen that that happen.
Um, and it, it does create more complexity, but ultimately it's like,
what's gonna be better for your customer?
Mm-hmm.
And is that gonna result in, if you do this, you're gonna have a
better delivery experience, you're gonna have more control over it.
Um, are you gonna get more repeat customers?
And I think it varies depending on the type of product that you're selling.
And is it a product that does, you know, result in people purchasing it more
often, um, and is delivering, gonna make it better for that, for your customer?
Then, then it makes complete sense to do something like that.
Um, and so I think in that early days of setting that up,
it's gonna take a bit of work.
It's gonna take effort.
You're gonna have things that don't work quite well and you know, you might have
some unreliable drivers, but once you actually get it set up and going, then it,
then it just ticks along and then yeah, then it just becomes like second nature.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
What happens if I.
Go on.
You, you were still saying.
And the other thing I've seen is depending on the number of products
that you actually have, um, I've seen people where we've had, we've
hired like storage locations, um, they've had padlocks on them that
can be accessible by pin pin numbers.
And they've actually sent drivers in to do the pick and pack for them,
depending on the type of product that they're, they're they're shipping.
Um, and you know, for, it's a very simple product to actually grab off the shelf
and, and pack it away and, and deliver it.
Um, so that, that way you can actually
That's genius.
Yeah.
That's genius.
I like you could do that, especially if it's a smaller.
I suppose less expensive product that your, your drivers are less likely to go
and Rob and I've got some way of changing that pin code every night or something.
You know, there's, yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
I mean, when, when Covid Covid happened, uh, we did this for quite
a few customers, um, who wanted to set this up, and particularly around
even distribution of hand sanitizer.
Um, we basically, you know, set up these micro warehouses essentially
out of these storage facilities.
Um, it was the same product, you know, there was a couple
of different variations of it.
Drivers would just go in there and do the pick and pack and
deliver it to the customer.
And do you find drivers are willing to do that?
Yeah, I think it's, I think as long as they're being
remunerated in a particular way.
Um, then drivers well, and particularly where it's consistent work.
Um, you know, I think there is this large pool now of people that are driving
for ride share companies globally.
Um, these guys are always, you know, guys and girls are always
looking for, you know, additional ways of earning income and Mm.
You know, they, they're happily, you know, pick up this type of work.
It's amazing, isn't it?
That what, what you're talking about, because one of the things which
has been constantly plaguing us, I think as e-commerce entrepreneurs
the last few years is the, the rise of Amazon and their exceptional
delivery service and how, yeah.
How it is almost impossible to compete.
Um, yeah, that, but what you are talking about actually, if you
can get it to work, is a way of competing with that because you're
being on a much smaller scale, right?
You're doing what Amazon have done.
In the sense that you're putting these storage centers
in locations around the uk Yeah.
And you are using in effect, same day delivery service.
Um, where Amazon, sometimes I can get same day delivery in the uk, but it's not, it's
not as much as I thought it would be yet.
Actually, it's still usually next day.
Um, if you're a prime customer, So, but what, what I see here is actually all of
a sudden there's something quite global because I could set up a store small
storage facility in Sydney if we had enough enough business in Sydney, right?
Yep.
Yeah.
And so then you could start looking at your data and saying, okay, where
are a lot of my orders happening?
Um, which locations does it where does it make sense?
Um, mm Yeah.
And you could, you know, if you're, particularly if you're doing
international stuff, you could be holding stock in locations.
Um, and maybe there's, there's cheaper ways of being able to send
it there and yeah, so may actually be more efficient in doing it.
Yeah.
That's really interesting.
I think it's a really fascinating idea of getting Uber drivers or whichever,
you know, I'm sure they're right.
Yeah, exactly.
Comes out besides, but getting Uber drivers to be part of your staff at
a fix rate where they pick and pack from where they are, which gives
you, it instantly gives you depots all around a specific country.
And if it makes sense for that city to then offer that same day delivery service,
I think that's quite an interesting idea.
Yeah.
Are there companies successfully doing this?
Uh, I mean, we see, we see that without, with our business today, particularly,
uh, in the Australian market.
Um mm-hmm.
And, you know, lots of companies that are, are using the Zoom2u platform to
do that, but also, you know, lots of our Locate2u customers are doing it as well.
Um, one of the things that we're quite close in being able to release, um,
we know that, um, you know, getting started with something like this,
you know, takes a bit of effort.
Yeah.
Um, we're actually providing an integration layer from Locate2u.
We'll connect you to different carriers, essentially across the world.
And so it will plug into Uber's network, but it will also plug into DoorDash and
many of these other sort of ride sharing companies that are now offering delivery.
Um, you can have your orders come to Locate2u, and then it can actually
send them out to the different, uh, carrier networks across the world.
And so you don't necessarily have to engage your own drivers.
I think that's generally the best way you're gonna get the best experience.
But if you've got overflow work you wanna send out to them or you
wanna start in that way, that's also one way of being able to do that.
Which just again, reduces the barriers to entry in a sort of trial test, doesn't it?
Exactly.
That's really fascinating.
I suppose the other part of me is thinking actually, if I was in the
fulfillment game, So, well, technically I am, we do fulfillment, uh, from our
warehouse, um, for other companies, right?
So we say, listen, give us your products.
We'll ship 'em out for you, especially if they're small.
Yeah.
Um, products, we're, we're pretty good at that.
And so we have, um, customers that use us for fulfillment and we ship
their products, um, mainly in the uk, sometimes internationally as well.
And I'm really interested in this as a concept because I, if I
could, I then, Suppose say, right.
I can, I can think about this with my e-commerce entrepreneur hat
on, but I could also think about this with my entrepreneur hat on.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Um, and start building in effect these sort of mini fulfillment centers,
um, especially around key cities like London would be an obvious one.
Maybe Edinburgh.
Yeah, definitely.
You know, Manchester and a few of these sort of places where you can then start to
go, well we can do same day delivery now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and then everything else is next day delivery.
Um, yeah, which would be a massive competition boost,
I think, um, yeah for you
. Exactly.
When, when you're consolidating orders from many companies, um, yeah.
You know, that allows you to get more volume.
It allows you to drive density as well, and yeah.
I, I think that, that definitely makes sense.
Well, you know, on our, where our warehouse is, there's
um, there's a unit on our.
Warehouse estate for want of a better expression, where we distribute from,
uh, I dunno the name of the company cuz.
I think overnight, basically trucks come into the compound and drop off parcels
from just about every single delivery company out there from every to, you know,
whoever is, is particularly using them.
And these guys, I think are the last mile they, in effect, yeah.
Okay.
Done.
This kind of thing where it's like they, they have, they must
be hundreds of drivers picking up parcels, filling their cars with
parcels, um, and delivering them out.
And I think.
It'd be a really interesting experiment to do, just to say, actually we can
offer same day delivery across Liverpool.
Yes.
Um, and, and target that to, I don't know.
Uh, I'm, I'm just thinking outside my box a little bit here.
Steve, you've got me thinking now you've got me thinking.
So it's, it is really fascinating that now with technology,
Um, uh, that you can do this.
So I guess is, is the technology prohibitive?
Is it pretty reasonable?
Um, I mean obviously you've got locate2u, but what sort of other tech do I need?
I'm, I'm kind of curious what the tech involvement is.
Yeah.
Um, so you're probably gonna need, there's probably two main things.
One is Yeah, something like Locate2u.
So something that's gonna do route optimization.
Um, and that's, that's gonna be really important.
Uh, but the other thing you're gonna need is something on the checkout
process that is gonna allow you to allow your customer to choose the
different types of delivery options.
Um, and so, you know, for example, on Shopify, Um, we, we have an app
on there called local Delivery, and what that allows you to actually do
is it allows the customer to actually select the point of checkout the day
they actually want the product to be delivered, and then the time window, and
it will display that information based on the person's postcode or zip code.
Um, and so in the background you've got a series of rules that says, okay,
if, um, on this particular day, on this zip code or postcode, we're actually
offering a delivery time window, and these are the time windows, and these
are the numbers of, uh, orders that we will accept inside of this time window.
Um, and so, so you're gonna need a piece of software that's gonna allow you to
have that sort of customization mm-hmm.
At the point of checkout.
Um, and so whether it's on Shopify or you know, WooCommerce or any other e-commerce
platform, you, you'll need that part.
And that's, that's the important part.
And then that will communicate to the customer.
To say, Hey, this is when your order's actually gonna arrive.
And limiting the numbers of orders at the point of that time window is
important because you typically don't have unlimited numbers of drivers.
You're can have a, a set, a number of drivers.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but you also want to be able to change that.
Order number on certain days.
So, you know, if you're a florist and you're doing Valentine's Day, you wanna
be able to spike that on Valentine's Day, and you, you would preplan the number of
drivers you need at those types of things.
Um, and so that's, you know, relatively simple to do.
Um, you know, the local delivery software costs $20 a month, so it's,
you know, it's, it's very inexpensive.
Um, and then, yeah, then you.
You'll need the route optimization.
Again, that's not that expensive either.
It's, it's usually on a per driver base, um, and varies in costs, but
somewhere between sort of 30 to 50, $50 a month, um, per user, thereabouts.
Right.
So again, not cost prohibitive at all.
No.
It's all fairly straightforward stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, what we've seen now over the last, you know, five years in
particular is that there are products out there that are available to assist
companies in being able to do this.
And it's really around e-commerce businesses, figuring out how this
is gonna work with their business and wanting to make that change.
And there is effort involved in making this change.
Um, but then, you know, I think the return on investment is, yeah, the time, but
also the money is, is, you know, you, you get a return very, very quickly.
And do you find then that if I, if I, if I'm gonna go to the trouble of investing
in the tech, which from a monetary point of view is not the, is not the
monthly cost, it's just the upheaval, I suppose, to the site and the tech
team getting it all set up, correct?
Um, it's the change in process, isn't it, with the, with the pick and pack team,
so you know how orders come through and so, so there's, there's a little bit of
thinking, I guess, for each company to.
To sort of go through.
Definitely, definitely.
Um, and if I, if I go to the expense of doing that, um, how do you,
how do you remunerate the drivers?
What, uh, maybe that's how long is a piece of string, but, uh,
how does it work for the driver?
How do they get paid for what they do?
What sort of cost do I need to have in my head for that?
Yeah.
Um, It varies depending on like the product that you're delivering,
um, but also the distance and how far that driver is traveling.
But typically, um, you know, the simplest way I would be thinking about
it is go into, you know, your ride sharing app, type in one location to
another location, it will tell you how much it's gonna cost and mm-hmm.
And that, you know, globally, it will tell you that, that will give you a sense of,
okay, that's the cost on a per distance basis, whether it's kilometer or per
mile basis, you, you can work that out.
And so if you think about that and you think about, okay, well if a driver's
gotta travel, you know, 50 kilometers or 50 miles on a particular day, this
is what it's gonna cost them to do that.
And if he's doing that many deliveries inside of that radius, then you can work
out what that cost cost can look like Now.
You want to have a cost every time that driver's gotta stop and
get out of his vehicle, there's time associated in doing that.
And so you wanna have some money that's available to pay
for that, that time period.
Um, and so you generally want to be able to work out, you
know, it's a fee per delivery.
Um, and that, that's generally gonna be the best way of being able to do it.
Um, and you know, I've seen that where it's.
Yeah, it, it can be as cheap as, you know, in our market.
You know, I've seen it as five, six, $7 a delivery where a driver's
delivering 60, 70 parcels in one go.
Um, where it's other e-commerce businesses has been at 15 to
20, sometimes $25 a delivery.
Um, but yeah, and it varies in every market cuz you know, every
country, obviously the wages are, are gonna be different.
So again, it is this, um, if you do like same day delivery or, or this sort
of local delivery, is that something that I, as the e-commerce entrepreneur
would then charge a fee for to clients?
Or is that how typically do it?
Yeah, typically.
And so what you would do is you would, your price per delivery may
vary than what you are incurring.
You would generally fix that cost to your customer, and then you would know
that you've got enough margin to make sure that, you know, hopefully you
should be receiving more orders because you're giving, you know, more certainty
of when this product's arriving.
Um, but you know, we've seen it work.
You know, one of our customers, um, is Nespresso.
And at the point of checkout they've got a number of different
options that are available.
They've got the postal network that's available, but if you want it faster,
you've got these two options that are available and it's, you know, whether
it's within a three hour time window or whether it's, you know, later
on in the, in the evening delivery.
Um, and so I think it's, it, yeah, it's giving those customers flexibility.
Um, And, and knowing you've got, you know, your pricing is set so that you're
gonna cover that cost or you may lose some, but then you're gonna gain it
because you're gonna, you know, receive, more, more orders from your customers
by, by having that option available.
Yeah, and I guess it's one of those things you'll experiment with, isn't it?
And you'll tweak it and then That's right.
You can figure it out as you go along.
That's right.
Um, and I, and
I think, you know, if you think about most businesses are spending so much money on
advertising to try and get customers, Um, and so I would think about it in a point
of view of like, just take some money and some budget, put it aside and, you
know, even if you're gonna lose money on all these deliveries, just think about
it as a marketing expense, um, because you're probably gonna find that you're
gonna get more customers by doing this.
Yeah, yeah.
No, totally.
It's, it's a really interesting idea.
Um, and I think it cannot be overstated how well a good delivery
experience brings a customer back.
Definitely.
Um, and how quickly a bad delivery experience will get
a customer to shop elsewhere.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
Definitely.
It's, um, definitely it's, it's one of those things that's usually
out outside of your control.
Yeah.
So you say one of your clients then is,
and I think, I think actually just, you just said something interesting.
It's like most e-commerce businesses just think it's the courier fault and they
leave it and they think they can't solve this problem, and They, blame the courier,
but I think actually the e-commerce owner can have control over this.
It's just a matter of setting something up.
Yeah, it is, isn't it?
It's just a matter of figuring out.
Um, how you can, how you can do it based on where your customers are.
Um, that's right.
And not, I like it because the, the concept, the tech, the
ideas give you possibilities.
Um, whereas, and this is one of the things I love about e-comm and
technology, it's sort of leveled the playing field, hasn't it really?
Because for in England, We were stuck with the Royal Mail
service for the longest time.
That's right.
And then different couriers came along and some of them were as bad
and some of them were worse, you know, just to do worse what it was.
Yeah.
Um, and one of them very famously just went, well, let's just change
our name and it'll con everybody into thinking we're brilliant.
Again, British probably went, are you mad?
Um, so, you know, we've still got the courier services.
Then Amazon came in and.
One of the interesting things, uh, with Amazon, and you see the little, I saw it a
little bit in Australia as well actually, when Amazon came in, the delivery
system, which wasn't great at that point in terms of its speed has to catch up
and has to become efficient because Amazon know what they're doing, right?
Yes.
And you and it, and you do see this effect wherever Amazon go.
A few years later, the delivery network seemed to be.
But they seem to be a little bit better, uh, wherever they're at.
Yeah.
And so, uh, I, I do think this is one of those things which is constantly
changing, but the fact now that you can actually start to have your, you can
think there's a number of things that I never thought you would be able to do.
Number one, I didn't realize I'd ever be able to set up my own bank.
Apparently I can, uh, the bank of Matt, if you wanna gimme your money, no problem.
Um, and uh, I can now set up my own haulier, uh, you know, delivery company.
Um, And, and use a preexisting network and plug into that in a way
that actually is, is quite clever.
Yes.
Um, yes, I think and I love that.
I love that about technology.
I love that about innovation and where we're at at the moment.
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely keeps it all exciting, doesn't it?
If you're an e-commerce entrepreneur.
It's, it's like Absolutely.
Um, and in fact, I, I imagine now, I mean we're having this conversation
in the office cuz I, every now and again, I just go, I think we should
set up a new e-commerce business because again, that's just my nature.
Um, and I'm like, Thinking about an e-commerce business, but what, what
you are in effect talking about now is actually how could I do something
in e-commerce that's hyper localized and offer a delivery service that
is unparalleled and unmatched?
That would be a really interesting thought experiment, wouldn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It really would.
So, um, you mentioned, uh, Nespresso and other clients like that.
How does it work with them?
Do they send you.
Um, individual parcels and you sort them out and give them to drivers,
or do they just use your software and have drivers come to their warehouse,
or do you like pick and pack for them?
I'm, I'm curious how you do it with other retail companies.
Yeah.
Um, and Nespresso is a really good example.
Um, here in Australia, they, um, they actually, they've got lots of retail
stores across the country and they use those as micro warehouses, um mm-hmm.
And so they draw a radius from that, that retail store.
Um, and so within that radius, as the person actually goes through the, the
checkout process, they're entering their details of address information.
And as they're doing that, it then just shows them the list of delivery options.
And so if it's, uh, an order.
That's for same day delivery that would go to the retail store.
They would do the pick and pack.
Driver would turn up there and pick that up.
And that's generally, it's typically time windowed.
Um, and so the retail store knows, okay, the driver's gonna be picking,
you know, these five orders up in this time window to actually be delivered.
And yeah, it works.
Works really well.
That's really interesting.
I'm just thinking about, um, we used to do beauty, um, I sold the beauty
business about 18 months ago, but one of the things that you, like a lot of
the beauty brands here in the uk, they have salons that sell their products.
And so actually they could do in effect the same thing, couldn't they?
It's like, yeah, yeah.
We can offer same day delivery.
Um, on these products and, um, and actually you could do that probably
around the, around the country.
So postcode areas, you know.
Yeah.
Um, that'd be a really interesting experiment to do.
I wonder how long it'll be before they start knocking on your door
and going, oh, Matt, I heard Matt say that I could do this.
Um, that's really interesting.
Well, Steve, listen, you've got my, my brain pondering now and,
and, and racing with ideas.
What else in this industry is, is happening at the moment that
we should be thinking of, um, as e-commerce entrepreneurs?
What should, what else should we be thinking about?
I mean, I think it is interesting to think about the likes of like chat
GPT and the impact that's gonna have.
Um, I think particularly, Uh, customer service wise, being
able to respond to customers much faster using tools like Chat gbt.
Um, particularly I think, you know, not necessarily not now, but I,
I would imagine over the next six to 12 months, um, watching what's
happening in the AI space, I think is gonna be really important.
Um, because I think the early adopters of that are gonna, are gonna really
accelerate their customer experience.
Yeah.
Um, so I think a lot's, lot's happening there.
Um, yeah.
And I think, you know, I think delivery.
Now is gonna be what sort of really, you know, makes different e-commerce
businesses really grow, grow and, you know, excel from their competitors.
Yeah, no, I think you're right.
I think this's gonna be one of the standout things.
And so, um, this has been a really eye-opening conversation, Steve and
so if people listening want to find out more, if they want to reach out,
if they wanna find out more about, um, Locate2u, what's the best way to do that?
Yeah, I mean, you can find out, you can head onto our
website, which is Locate2u.com.
It's the number two and the letter u.
Um, if you wanted to reach out to me directly, um, you can just grab me on
LinkedIn, just searching Steve Orenstein.
Um, I'm also on TikTok.
You can grab me on there as well.
Um, and, and on YouTube.
So, um, yeah, happy to connect and, um, yeah, always happy to chat and
have, you know, provide any advice anyone's looking for and thinking
about doing this for their business.
That's fantastic.
So do check out, uh, Locate2u.com.
Locate the number two and the letter u.
We will of course link to all of that in the show notes.
Uh, Steve, let me close with, um, my final question.
So, If I may, uh, it's a question I've, I've started asking, uh, a lot of people,
I'm just really curious with the answer.
So, um, this show is sponsored by e-commerce cohort, um, e-commerce cohort's
like a monthly mastermind coaching program that we run, which is, I just love it.
It's great.
Got some amazing people in there.
It's all digital of course, but imagine you are speaking to a room,
a genuine room, uh, full of cohort members who are keen and eager to
learn from you and your expertise.
So you've just done this keynote speech on how to set up same day delivery, be
hyper localized, and absolutely kill it and trash Amazon in the process.
That'd be a great webinar title by the way.
Um, And you've done that webinar and you know the crowd's going wild.
Go Steve.
Um, and you get to do that thing they do at the Oscars, which is, you know,
that sort of speech, which says, I would just like to thank, um, who would you,
who's had a big influence on you past or present on your business, how you
see things at the moment that you would sort of bring into that list and why?
Oh, that's a, that's a big question Matt.
A big one.
That's what I say.
Yeah.
Oh.
I mean, I think, you know, over the years, uh, I've had lots of different people
that have been involved in, you know, providing advice and mentoring me, um,
you know, at all, all different stages.
Um, yeah, I mean, I, I couldn't name someone specifically cause there's
been, I guess there's been so many different people that have provided
lots of advice, um, along the way.
That's a good question.
But I mean, you know, I really think also I.
I've, I've built, you know, a number of different businesses and I've got
two businesses running at the moment.
Both Zoom2u and Locate2u.
And ultimately it's, it's the teams inside of those businesses
that do a lot of that work.
Um, and I've got, yeah, a, a really great team, um, across the,
across both of our businesses who.
Work really hard on delivering a really great solution to our customers.
Um, yeah, and I think, you know, without having a really great team
and having those people that believe in the vision of what we're trying to
deliver, um, you don't have a business.
And so, yeah, I'd have to say the team that we've got, um, yeah, really, really
helps, uh, our businesses, uh, grow.
Fantastic.
That's a good answer.
Uh, the team that makes the dream work.
Uh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Steve, listen, thanks for coming on the show, man.
And uh, no problem.
It's been, it's been a really interesting conversation and like I
say, lots and lots of food for thought.
Um, I'm checking out, locate2u.
I'm gonna check out the website.
I'm gonna be talking to the team about same day delivery services, whether
it's gonna make sense for us, but I'm curious to see whether we can implement
this in our fulfillment services, um, in a few places around the country.
That would be a really interesting thought experiment.
Uh, and I'm really intrigued to see whether I can create a hyper
localized e-commerce business.
Um, that would be a really fun experiment.
So watch this space.
But listen, Steve, thanks for coming on.
Thanks for sparking the old gray matter and, and getting me thinking about that.
No, no worries.
It's been an absolute pleasure, man.
Uh, genuinely
It'd be really good.
Ah, no problems at all.
Thanks, Matt.
Awesome.
Well, thanks Steve for joining me and also a big shout out to today's
show sponsor, the e-commerce cohort.
Remember to check out their free training online at ecommercecycles.com.
Also, be sure to follow the e-commerce podcast wherever you get your
podcast from because we have yet more great conversations lined up and I
don't want you to miss any of them.
And before I wrap up today's episode, uh, lemme just take a quick moment
to invite you, dear listener, to become a part of the show.
If you're an e-commerce entrepreneur or an expert and would like to share
your insights with our audience, we would love to hear from you.
Or if you know someone who would make a great guest, just like Steve,
Then please send them our way.
Just head over to the website, www.ecommercepodcast.net, and
all the information is there.
And in case no one has told you yet today, you are awesome.
Yes you are.
It's just a burden you have to bear.
Steve has to bear it.
I have to bear it.
You've got to bear it as well.
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Now that's it from me.
That's it from Steve.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Have a great day wherever you are in the world.
I'll see you next time.
Bye for now.