These days, convenience is a way of life. Consumers rely on deliveries more than ever before and they expect these deliveries to be fast, reliable and low cost. In fact, ecommerce shipments are on track to double by 20261 and 90% of U.S. consumers expect free two-to-three-day shipping.2 This means last mile fleet operators have to work harder to create better consumer experiences and improve their operations.
Starting today, Last Mile Fleet Solution is available to help fleet operators create exceptional delivery experiences, from ecommerce order to doorstep delivery. The solution allows your business to optimize across every stage of the last mile delivery journey: capturing valid addresses, planning delivery routes, efficiently navigating drivers, tracking shipment progress, and analyzing fleet performance. Last Mile Fleet Solution provides reliable infrastructure that scales with you as your business grows–all with predictable pricing per delivery. It builds on one of our existing mobility solutions, On-demand Rides & Deliveries, which is used by leading ride-hailing and on-demand delivery operators around the world.
From our partners:
Create exceptional delivery experiences for consumers
Every year, millions of packages go undelivered or missing, often due to a wrong address being entered or consumers not being home to receive them. These delivery failures are frustrating for consumers and costly for fleet operators. With Last Mile Fleet Solution, companies can improve their experiences with simplified address entry to help capture correct addresses. Shipment tracking and up-to-date arrival times allow consumers to be ready and available to receive their packages. And detailed delivery locations can help drivers drop packages off at the right place, every time.
Our promise to customers is that we’ll deliver their goods within 120 minutes of receiving their order, and efficient route planning and navigation is indispensable in helping us achieve that. We chose Google Maps Platform because no other provider supports us so well with data – from distance and travel time data for planning to real-time data while driving.
Help drivers stay on track, right within your app
Drivers are the heart of your operations, and their jobs are getting harder with increasing direct-to-consumer deliveries. Assisting them with the right tools has never been more important. Last Mile Fleet Solution helps drivers complete their tasks throughout the day with the information and guidance they need to perform at their best.
- Embedded turn-by-turn navigation guides drivers to efficiently complete each task with the familiar Google Maps interface. The in-app experience offers seamless integration into drivers’ existing workflows while also allowing customization for your brand.
- Detailed delivery locations and traffic data can improve ETAs so drivers get to the right place on time.
- A full day view allows drivers to plan their stops for the day, so that they can adjust their route plan as needed.
- Improved routing and in-app navigation helps drivers with their daily work, leading to less frustration and better delivery performance.
Optimize your fleet’s performance and planning
Last mile delivery can make up over half of total shipping costs,3 which means the pressure to efficiently manage your fleet has never been higher. Last Mile Fleet Solution enables you to visualize your fleet in real time, including shipment status and route progress, helping you keep fleet performance at its peak. Real-time and predictive traffic is used to provide full-day ETAs, offering early signals into potential issues. You can also generate insights into your fleet to better optimize performance.
In addition, Cloud Fleet Routing API from Google Cloud (Generally Available in Q2) provides advanced fleet-wide routing capabilities. It combines the scale of Google Cloud with dynamic routing data from Google Maps. When Cloud Fleet Routing API is used in tandem with Last Mile Fleet Solution, your fleet operations will have consistent routing data from planning to execution.
At Paack, we are obsessed with helping some of the largest e-commerce retailers in Europe create exceptional delivery experiences for the millions of orders they receive each month. To scale quickly, we adopted Last Mile Fleet Solution and Cloud Fleet Routing API which enables our drivers and fleet managers to maintain peak efficiency and go beyond our 98% on-time, first time delivery rates.
Last Mile Fleet Solution is now in public preview for companies that directly manage or own their delivery fleet. For pricing and availability contact sales or to learn more see the developer documentation.
1Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index, 2021
2McKinsey & Company, “Retail Speaks”, 2021
3Capgemini Research Institute, Last Mile Delivery Challenge
By: Shalin Mantri (Group Product Manager, Google Maps Platform)
Source: Google Cloud Blog
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