'The early bird catches the worm', and so we gathered our troops at 7.45am sharp this Wednesday to set up for an exclusive retail breakfast event 'The Future of Urban Logistics' at the top floor of the beautiful Fora office space in Clerkenwell, and introduce our 'Hub-to-Home' solution to a selected group of 40 retailers.
This latest collaboration with on-demand delivery company Stuart leverages Parcelly 'City hubs' to serve as an interphase between last-mile and traditional delivery, featuring two innovative fulfilment models:
- Hyper-Local Warehousing
Retail inventory is stored in Parcelly hubs close to customers to shorten delivery distances and enable fast & precise deliveries via Stuart
(both for 'Same Hour/Day' delivery and 'Next Day' scheduled slots). - Cross-Docking (in- and out-bound)
a) Parcelly hub holds deliveries with little storage time in between. This enables complete flexibility for consumers to decide when to receive their 'Same Day' orders and when to return an item, also enabling instant returns.
b) Customer return parcels are held in Parcelly hub for aggregated 'Same Day' returns to DC at the end of a day. This service allows 'Same Hour/Day' collection or '15min Collection' slots via Stuart delivery fleet, returning parcels to local Parcelly hubs.
Ready to launch our new 'Hub to Home' collaboration
Both services tap further into the future of last mile delivery by introducing a 'smart warehousing cloud' that offers retail customers increased speed, flexibility and operational excellence across their fulfilment process. By utilising Parcelly's hyper-local warehouses as short term storage solution, retailers can bundle together ecommerce purchases and fulfilment routes, whilst on-demand courier Stuart arranges one-stop pickup and drop-off for green last-mile delivery to the end customer and reverse. Leveraged through smart technology, our service can be either fully integrated through an API or utilised immediately through a dedicated dashboard. In-store parcel scanning for check-out in and check-out of items, warehouse and replenishment management, parcel tracking, real-time status updates and dedicated alerts are only some of the features available.
Unlike traditional warehousing, retailers benefit from all the advantages of a hyper-local network of tech enabled PUDO locations, which means no business rates, service charges or static storage capacities. With a nationwide network of small to large hyper-local warehouses, retailers only pay for the exact storage space needed, as all sites are dynamically managed and operationally optimised through Parcelly’s smart technology platform.
Sebastian Steinhauser, CEO & Founder of Parcelly: ’Trying to compete with Amazon Prime does not seem to be an option. Instead, retailers should accept this new environment and the respective service options as standards consumer expect. With our hyper-local warehousing and on-demand delivery solution, any retailer can offer Prime today.’
In a nutshell, our Cross-docking partnership provides the following benefits to online retailer:
- On-demand fulfilment: <60 minutes for delivery to end customer and/or restocking of retail store (one or multi-drop).
- Flexibility: Bespoke pricing with no long-term contracts or fixed costs inventory; smart warehousing cloud can be accessed as and when required.
- Control and Visibility: In-house tech allows tracking and monitoring of inventory.
- Compatibility: Agnostic; compatible with any courier or shipper; no need for further tech development or complex integration.
- Sustainability: Large, high-emission vehicles to be replaced with ‘green’ delivery options for last-mile.
- UK footprint: Nationwide network of hyper-local mini-warehouses.
Nicole Mazza, Commercial Director of Stuart: “The event allowed us to educate retailers on this innovative solution and give them the competitive edge within the evolving retail space. With an ever-growing awareness on the consumers’ part to use services that promote a more sustainably-driven model, as well as the desire to receive goods on-demand and quickly, means that retailers need to be able to offer solutions in order to retain customer loyalty. Exciting options at check out, such as 15-minute slots for scheduled returns, are services which meet and exceed customer expectations, helping retailers stand out from the crowd. With Cross-docking we enable businesses to offer competitive services to their customers – and together with Parcelly – solve the urban logistics challenge of getting products to customers quicker and more efficiently.”
Sebastian Steinhauser, CEO & Founder of Parcelly adds: ’It has been a great session this morning, covering supply chain challenges, market trends, case studies and a lot of time to network with our guests. Given the long Q&A and level of interest overall, an event worth organising again soon and testament of the rising demand of hyper-local fulfilment solutions.
Consumer demands are changing, influenced by an array of trends in society, such as urbanisation, globalisation, increased connectivity, an ageing population and the growth of the sharing economy. Omni-channel is definitely more than a buzzword. Retailers getting it right can expect 15-30% sales increase while providing more control to their customers through improved delivery options. It has never been easier to collaborate and to test or try an additional service proposition without the need of cost- and time-consuming integrations.’
We look forward to working with more Online retailers who are keen to streamline fulfilment processes, speed up delivery cycles and ensure maximum convenience and satisfaction for their customers. All our hyper-local warehouse and Cross-docking solutions can be fully tailored, from bespoke agnostic parcel processing needs (label, bar- or qr-code reading; B2C and B2B enabled), to on-demand warehouse space requirements (location, capacity, security, storage conditions, length of lease and/or staffing) and branded or white labelled solutions.
The Parcelly & Stuart Team thank you for an all-around great event!
A big THANK YOU to the team at Stuart for co-hosting this fantastic event. If your business is interested in implementing our latest fulfilment services please
