Optimizing

delivery logistics
for peak demand
How to keep pace with record-shattering
sales events, unpredictable weather
and changing tastes
This guide is brought to you by...

HERE
The world’s leading location platform: helping people and
goods move more smoothly and safely for over 30 years.

Is it for me?
If you’re looking to optimize delivery logistics and maximize productivity during peak
demand, then yes:
• Logistics platforms, online food delivery and e-commerce company CEOs, CTOs,
CDOs, CPOs, COOs
• Mobility consultants and analysts
• Those interested in entering the food delivery and e-commerce delivery industry
• Research students

It will help you learn:

• The role of location technology in efficient and accurate food and e-commerce delivery
• The benefits of dynamic routing
• Relevant trends affecting the delivery industry
• How to stay ahead of predictable and unpredictable peak demand
• Why communication is key
• How to make your fleets safer

2 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Delivery windows for e-commerce goods and food delivery
are shrinking. What once took 5-7 business days to ship
can now reach customers that same day (if everything
goes as planned). As for food delivery, pizza and Chinese
food are no longer the only cuisines available if someone
is craving delivery; now there are hundreds of options!
Demand for fast e-commerce and food delivery continues
to rise, how can you stay ahead of peak demand?

Peak demand: a blessing, but sometimes a curse 4

e-commerce delivery 6

Food delivery on-demand 8

Issues both e-commerce and food delivery face 10

Dive deeper 12

Meet the contributors 13

Peak demand: a blessing,
but sometimes a curse

While the year-over-year demand for e-commerce and food deliveries continues to grow,
periods of peak demand such as Cyber Monday and Amazon Prime Day are predictable, but
only to a point. Due to the, now annual, habit of record-shattering sales, these consumer
“holidays” send e-commerce leaders scrambling to meet growing demand and ever-tightening
delivery windows.
The same could be said for food delivery. Super Bowl Sunday, Halloween, Singles Day1,
Thanksgiving Eve and New Year’s Eve and Day are major food delivery holidays. However,
delivery rush periods for e-commerce and food delivery extend far beyond major holidays.
Weather, local college activities and even national promotions can cause delivery disruptions
or a rise in demand that can spiral out of control2. If a local sports team is competing in a
championship game, an influx in local food deliveries could be expected. And the same could
be said for bad weather.

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For example, during bouts of extreme weather, people do not want to leave their homes, so
customers decide to order food delivery. What the hungry customers don’t think about is that
the delivery drivers might not necessarily want to leave their homes during the blizzard either
(and if they’re independent contractors they don’t have to). Thus, we have growing demand
but no drivers.
Winter storms in the American Midwest and the UK, typhoons in Japan and Shenzhen3 and
bushfires in Australia are all instances where weather played a part in delivery delays.
All of these circumstances and more feed into the question of how logistics platforms, online
food delivery companies and e-commerce companies can effectively beat the rush periods and
avoid unhappy customers.

Location intelligence can help.

5 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

e-commerce delivery

4.3 days
The maximum amount of time the average shopper is willing
to accept for delivery, according to a survey from 2019.
Source: AlixPartners

Prime Day 2019, broke sales records4 again with 175 million items bought. Its reach broke
records, too, as it brought exclusive deals to more countries than ever before; 18, including
the United Arab Emirates, which was just added this year. But with great reach comes greater
responsibility and follow through. Amazon Prime members took to social media to report
delivery delays and called into question the pay-to-play privilege of two-day shipping5
for Prime members.

Curb the inconvenience

According to Bloomberg6, over the past three years the demand for delivery drivers continues to
grow; on sites like Indeed.com, job postings have tripled.
Stores like Target, Walmart and select grocery stores are offering convenient curbside pickup.
Unless e-commerce delivery times are shockingly fast and consistently reliable, the threat of
quick and easy curbside pickup looms for pure play e-commerce retailers. Little can outweigh
the convenience of pulling up to Target without needing to leave the comfort of your own car
while an employee brings your shampoo, pet food and laundry detergent directly to you.
However, e-commerce giants could have loyalty on their side. While delays are frustrating and
may cause consumers to fire off an angry tweet, will they really sever ties with the likes of
Amazon? Business Insider claims Amazon Prime customers have brand loyalty working for them.
From the individuals they spoke with, Business Insider mentioned that package delays, while
frustrating, wouldn’t be enough for some to leave Amazon altogether. The benefits outweigh the
annoyances of the occasional delay.

6 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Maximize assets with dynamic routing
With dynamic routing, your fleet moves through environments seamlessly and helps you
meet growing customer demands. The Route Optimization solution from HERE Technologies is
designed to aid fleet operators with the planning and execution of their daily operations. To do
this, the solution provides the ability to manage assets across the fleet to ensure the most
efficient operations relative to road conditions, weather, and other factors. It helps you pair the
right vehicle with the right delivery at the right time and optimize order stacking and enhance
the customer experience all while reducing costs. For instance, if a driver is delayed during a
drop-off, location technology can automatically match the next order with a new driver.
When delivery routes are based on reliable historic location data with the ability to adapt to
events in real time, drivers meet more delivery windows.

7 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Food delivery on-demand

30%
The percentage of customers willing to pay more for
faster food delivery.
Source: Tillster

First, here’s a little appetizer about

the food delivery industry.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, food delivery giants such as Uber Eats, Grubhub,
DoorDash, Postmates and Deliveroo rely on self-employed independent contractors to bring
you your pizza, pad Thai and tacos.
In the world’s biggest food delivery market, China, industry leader Meituan has two types of
drivers: specialist drivers, who work set shifts in a designated area, and crowdsourced drivers,
who are more like the independent contractors of the US and the UK where they sign up online
in a low-touch process and have the freedom to work when and where they want.
These companies cannot legally force their independent or crowdsourced drivers to drive so
they must get creative when a rush period is about to strike. It’s not uncommon for on-demand
companies to incentivize drivers with additional per order fees and promises of greater
earnings when a market is busy.

8 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Added motivation Gamification
“Gamification” is a
Driver incentives and gamification are popular strategies to
21st-century addition to the
keep contractors delivering. An example of driver incentives English language.
are loyalty programs such as Uber Pro. Uber Pro, though still
It’s the process of adding
in beta, is a points earning program where Uber drivers are games or gamelike elements to
rewarded after completing successful rides (although the something (such as a task) so
program is not currently available for those who drive solely as to encourage participation.
for Uber Eats). They earn points faster during select hours of
Source: Merriam-Webster
the day, which can easily be adjusted to cover predicted peak
times. Rewards include fuel and maintenance savings and
even online college tuition coverage.
Programs like Uber Pro help retain current drivers through
positive reinforcement, but they also attract new drivers;
a strategy that is crucial to getting as many drivers on the
road as possible.
Offering delivery “streaks” is a common gamification strategy.
Companies use this tactic to motivate drivers to complete a
certain number of deliveries within a given amount of time in
order to unlock a special bonus.
Gamification could also be serving another purpose, too.
By studying streak bonus driving data, analysts are able to
identify routes that would be prime for future drone delivery7.

Carve out more than just a slice of

this crowded space
Location services can help online food delivery companies
stay competitive and without accurate location data,
gamification and support for drivers couldn’t exist. It also
helps to modernize the user experience by providing accurate
ETAs with precise data. With real-time location intelligence,
you can create frictionless end-to-end deliveries and get your
products in the hands (or stomachs) of customers faster.

9 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Issues both e-commerce
and food delivery face

Both food delivery and e-commerce delivery are growing in popularity while delivery windows
are increasingly shrinking. Companies need to scale up their operations to meet with demand.
Whether it’s bagels and coffee or a new coffee table, customers expect deliveries on time, every
time. Long wait times and delays lead to dissatisfied customers which can turn pricey if they
decide to cancel their orders or request a refund or discount. Not only is it costly for customer
care to hand out discounts to placate unhappy customers, but it makes for a heavier workload if
there’s an increased volume of calls or social media posts to address.

How do you get ahead of the unpredictable?

When experiencing inclement weather, the need to be able to react and adapt in real time is
crucial. Maintaining a fleet of independent workers requires a lot of manual labor and routing
on the part of market managers. For instance, being mindful of their market may require them
to know of particular events that would elicit hunger from their potential consumers, such as a
college football homecoming game. Sending a well-timed alert to drivers to be out and about
before and during the game could nip a potential food delivery rush in the bud.
This is a difficult feat to manage across thousands of individual delivery markets, so there is a
lot of manual work when it comes to delivery district staffing. What can help? Communication
and accurate location data.

10 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Communication is key
If extreme weather is approaching, advise food delivery drivers - with as much notice as
possible - on the ideal times to get on the road, instead of contacting drivers the moment ETAs
skyrocket. Extreme weather for food delivery typically increases driver tips, but communication
is paramount because the safety of your fleet should always come first.
Grubhub recommends8 restaurants pad delivery times during bad weather. They put the focus
on communication for both sides, regularly updating the consumer as well as keeping staff
members informed.

Location intelligence makes for safer fleets

Real-time traffic and weather alerts can help to avoid traffic delays, weather disruptions and
shifts in customer demands. Drivers are able to meet more delivery windows when their routes
are based on reliable location data that can adapt to events in real time.

11 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Dive deeper
From eBooks, to articles from leading publications, here’s
some recommended reading for you to learn more about
the future of urban mobility, and HERE’s vision for it.

Read 1
How Singles Day Grew to Be the World’s Biggest Shopping Event
2
One arrested at Virginia Cheesecake Factory after promotion
attracts massive crowd
3
The tough, daring drivers behind China’s food delivery craze
4
Amazon says this year’s Prime Day surpassed Black Friday and Cyber
Monday combined
5
Amazon’s Two-Day Shipping Standard Slips for Some on Prime Day
6
There Aren’t Enough Drivers to Keep Up With Your Delivery Lifestyle
7
My Frantic Life as a Cab-Dodging, Tip-Chasing Food App Deliveryman
8
How to Avoid Delivery Slip-ups in Winter Weather

12 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.

Meet the contributors
To bring you this guide, we picked the brain of our
own HERE expert on transportation and logistics.
We appreciate his wisdom, industry insights and shared
passion for improving lives through smarter, more
efficient delivery.
Sarah Hale
Marketing Manager at HERE Technologies.
Sarah has a decade of experience in the
B2B space, with expertise in supply chain,
on-demand delivery and mapping. Her goal
is to demystify and convey the value of
technology in a way that’s approachable
yet informative.
Prior to HERE, Sarah served as the driver
marketing lead at Grubhub, where she worked
alongside product, network operations, and
market operations to staff delivery districts.
She joined Grubhub after several years-long
stints at PR and digital marketing agencies,
where she first gained exposure to the
logistics field. A graduate of Loyola University
Chicago, Sarah is one of the few Chicagoland
natives in the office but thrives on working
with a global team.
13 Want to talk? We do, too. Get in touch here.
Deepak Patnaik
Product Marketing Manager at
HERE Technologies.
Deepak leads the Enterprise Fleets industry
segment in the Product Marketing group
at HERE Technologies. Deepak’s charter is
to maximize the adoption, utilization and
attachment of industry-specific solutions
through an in-depth understanding of buyer
needs and pain points. Deepak brings to the
table over five years of experience in the
Transport & Logistics sector.
Prior to HERE Technologies, Deepak worked in
the management consulting practices of IBM
and Accenture and pursued an MBA at Oxford
University. Deepak lives in Berlin with his wife.
During holidays, they love to take off for a
week’s skiing in Austria or sailing by the sunny
coast of Southern France.
Deliver on time, every time and exceed
customers’ expectations.
Ensure accurate delivery, reduce wasted trips
and meet local delivery demands with rich,
fresh and accurate location intelligence. With
precise drop-off locations and real-time ETAs,
customers become repeat users.
Strengthen user loyalty and empower your
delivery fleet with location-rich data.

Learn more

About HERE Technologies

HERE, the Open Location Platform company, enables people, enterprises and cities to harness the power of
location. By making sense of the world through the lens of location we empower our customers to achieve better
outcomes – from helping a city manage its infrastructure or an enterprise optimize its assets to guiding drivers
to their destination safely. To learn more about HERE, including our new generation of cloud-based location
platform services, visit 360.here.com and here.com

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