Williams-Sonoma has partnered with crowdsourcing delivery solution provider, Deliv, to leverage its stores as online sales fulfillment and distribution centers, according to a Mobile Commerce Daily (MCD) report.
Online orders represent about 40 percent of Williams-Sonoma sales, and consumer demand for same-day delivery mounts as more use mobile devices for shopping. Popularized by the likes of Amazon, eBay and Google Shopping Express, same-day delivery is a game-changing service that is fast becoming a customer expectation.
“Clearly there’s been a race to get packages faster and cheaper to the consumer,” Ed Yruma, equity research analyst with KeyBanc, told MCD. “Consumers expect that they know when the package is going to arrive and … to arrive fairly quickly.”
Startup Deliv, based in Palo Alto, Calif., is a peer-to-peer network of shoppers and delivery people. It offers shoppers same-day delivery for the same prices as three-to-five-day delivery. The idea is to give shoppers maximum choice and convenience as to how and when they want to receive their merchandise. Deliv is “bridging the last mile gap between omnichannel retailers and their customers,” Deliv promotes on its website.
The company recently announced partnerships with four operators, covering more than 660 malls, which offer same-day delivery options for both store-bought and online-purchased items.
“By simply adding the Deliv same-day delivery option into their existing checkout process, the retailer preserves the customer shopping experience, fulfills orders from inventory from their local brick-and-mortar stores, all while maintaining ownership and data from each customer transaction,” according to the Deliv website.
Deliv has also joined IBM’s Ready for Smarter Commerce partner program so IBM retail clients can offer Deliv same-day delivery services from their own store networks. “Deliv and IBM together are solving the same-day delivery challenge by enabling retailers to take advantage of their store networks and intelligently leverage distributed inventory,” Errol Denger, director of product management, IBM, told MCD. “This is about smart execution and the ability to cost-effectively fulfill orders in a world where every minute matters to customers,” Denger said.
