Increasing customer demands for convenience is just one of the drivers behind the growth of quick commerce.
Another is that the rewards are enormous for companies and retailers that get it right.
“The growth in online channels for retailers who get the formula right is more than making up for lower in-store growth rates,” says Ohlig. “As we’ve seen in other regions around the world, while online sales are skyrocketing, there’s still room for growth—particularly in food.” Jens Ohlig, NielsenIQ managing director for Western Europe.
However, businesses need to meet the challenge of fulfilling orders quickly, efficiently, and compliantly.
Challenges include:
- Registering new drivers easily and securely.
- Order picking in the dark store – and getting the right products.
- Staying on the right side of the law when delivering age-restricted products like alcohol.
These obstacles not only impact efficiency but jeopardize customer experience and lessen the chance of a repeat order.
Here is a guide outlining how Scandit can power-up your quick commerce operation. We’ll give you proven strategies, technology tips, and insight that will inject speed and accuracy into your quick commerce operation.
What is the state of quick commerce in 2023
Quick commerce, also known as q-Commerce or on-demand delivery, is one of the rising stars of retail.
It caters to the increasing demand for convenience by quickly providing a wide range of products, including groceries and household items. Sometimes, these deliveries are made in less than 15 minutes.
One key component of quick commerce is the concept of dark stores. These are dedicated fulfillment centers or warehouses designed specifically for online orders.
According to Statista, the global quick-commerce market size was valued at $10.5 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.9% from 2021 to 2028. The report found that the US is the largest quick commerce market, followed by China and the UK.
Quick commerce has already gained traction. In Europe alone over 30 companies are in the market – many established in the past 18 months. But now there are signs the sector is entering a period of consolidation.
“One thing is for certain: Reaching the necessary size to be able to tap into economies of scale, capture efficiencies and reduce last-mile costs is key for long term profitability…Only the most efficient players, those that keep their costs low and become profitable, will survive the coming market consolidation.” Roland Berger – Quick Commerce A Lasting Revolution
Streamline driver registration with quick ID capture
Delivery drivers are the lifeblood of any quick commerce operation. So driver registration needs to be quick, hassle-free, and accurate.
Tedious paperwork for registration is the enemy of efficiency and accuracy. Fortunately, technology is available that allows them to ditch the forms and quickly scan and upload their data.
One solution is Scandit’s ID Scanning technology. It can be added to a smart device application – either natively or via a web application.
It handles over 2000+ different document types, including passports, driver’s licenses, and ID cards.
Accurate order picking is critical for fulfilling online orders fast
There are few things more irritating for a customer than receiving incorrect products in an order. This is why order picking is so important.
In a quick commerce operation where time is in short supply, it is important to do it fast and accurately.
Smart devices (either worker-owned or company-supplied devices) can help to organize the order picking, giving staff guidance and recording items for picking and packing orders.
However, putting this process support together into an app can take time. That is where Scandit’s SparkScan comes in. It has a pre-built UI and can easily slot onto an existing application.
Let the smart device match the delivery to the order
Fast turnaround is essential and there are many deliveries set to go out. Quick commerce employees face the challenge of locating and loading the right products into delivery vans.
Against a backdrop of rising labor costs and staff shortages, keeping the cost of picking and delivery low by streamlining operations is key. Otherwise, these costs may have to be passed to the customer. So delivery workers must be able to quickly locate and select the correct orders to ensure accurate, timely deliveries.
Frequently, the employee or driver will be faced with a series of identical bags with barcode tags.
Scandit’s MatrixScan with augmented reality solves this problem. The employee just hovers the device over many packages to highlight the correct one using AR.
Delivering to the front door with compliance assured
Compliance issues around the purchase and delivery of age-restricted goods is a serious business and one which has grown in magnitude.
In many countries and US states, a company delivering age-restricted goods like alcohol is considered an agent of the licensee and is obliged to verify age by law.
The signs are ID verification will become more important globally as more sensitive goods like alcohol, tobacco, or pharmaceuticals will be delivered through quick commerce.
Scandit offers an alternative to leaving the driver to visually check someone’s ID. It empowers delivery drivers with an ID scanning solution that scans driver licenses, passports, and ID cards from all over the world reliably.
The Scandit software captures the information on the identity document, scanning the barcode, machine-readable zone (MRZ), or text using Optical Character Recognition, with a quick scan of the back or front of the card (depending on the country).
All of this is done using the smartphone camera and the phone’s processor. So there is no need to connect to an external database.
The ID check is officially confirmed and recorded, lowering exposure to legal risks. And with Scandit, security, and data privacy is assured – all data extraction and processing is done entirely on the device.
Create a future-proof application for quick commerce
Delivery drivers face multiple challenges. They are constantly moving around in small spaces, working with many different products and tracking deliveries.
It is time to inject more efficiency and productivity into your quick commerce operation. And Scandit is at the forefront of enabling smart devices to help you achieve this.
More than that, it’s an opportunity to provide value-added services like ID scanning for age-verified deliveries like alcohol or tobacco.
Want to find out how Scandit can help you? Contact us and one of our team will show you how Scandit Smart Data Capture can transform your driver operations.