Retail Asia 2018 RA September.October 2018 (Online) | Page 50

LOGISTICS “Since we launched in 2015, we have learnt a great deal about the importance of ensuring logistics visibility to maintain efficiency and obtain a higher level of consumer satisfaction.” — Christina Lim, Vice-President, Marketing, honestbee (Singapore) margin industry like grocery, this can be crippling to the business, Gupta of TwentyOff shares. To tackle the high operational costs for delivery to end-customers, honestbee (Singapore)’s data and engineering teams leverage machine learning algorithms, which help the company plan its deliveries effectively to cope with ongoing demand across its various business verticals. Lim says: “This technology-led approach is complemented by a strong Operations team that responds to honestbee’s manpower needs accordingly to react to any immediate surge in demand and ensure that all orders are delivered on time.” HappyFresh Malaysia overcomes logistical challenges by constantly optimising its radius and finding the alternative to provide timely delivery for its B2C and B2B customers. Hu adds that the company also ensures that its fleets are experienced and sufficiently trained to keep up with orders. On the field, the homegrown e-commerce firm prepares its fleets to face the unexpected, such as ‘out of stock’ situations at the hypermarket. He says: “We are constantly working together with our retailers’ partners to integrate and minimise this issue. To add, cold chain delivery is another challenge: our fleet has to race against time to make sure that 48 Retail Asia September/October 2018 the ice cream, butter and other frozen items won’t melt on their way.” The absence of a reliable yet affordable cold chain is another similar challenge for TwentyOff, Gupta shares. It is understandably vital to maintain consistency when delivering ready-to- consume products. Beckitt of BottlesXO shares: “Ensuring consumables are at the correct temperature and in the right packaging for every order requires a huge amount of staff training and process monitoring. Enabling internal visibility throughout your logistics process and commitment to your values from the wider team are crucial to providing intended levels of customer experience.” Likewise, to ensure the freshness and quality of the products and ingredients, honestbee (Singapore) constantly provides training for its “Shopper Bees” so that they can handpick the freshest produce as and when its customers place their orders for the items. Beckitt continues: “In Asia, there is definitely a lack of awareness of how grocery products need to be transported and stored during various steps of the supply chain. You need to be sure your in-house logistics and any third-party logistics (3PL) partners have the correct processes and safety checks in place to ensure your products are arriving in the best possible condition.” Improving logistics visibility, especially in the last mile, can also help overcome some challenges as GPS-based driver tracking proved to be a huge step forward in providing visibility to consumers. However, more can be done to improve and integrate more intelligent estimated delivery times by accounting traffic, weather, average speed of the individual driver and other factors which can give customers better idea of the exact moment they will receive their goods. “Digitally- enabled temperature monitoring during the delivery for ready-to-consume food and beverages can also offer added value to consumers and increase the visibility,” Beckitt adds. To aid its riders to move faster and safely, no matter what the weather is, HappyFresh Malaysia’s riders’ bags are designed to be waterproof, light and able to roll like a suitcase. “For the customers, we update them through our ‘My Order Status’ page so they will be able to know what's their shopping progress. We are also working towards having an easier communication channel between shoppers/riders and our customers,” Hu says. Lim shares three pointers that honestbee (Singapore) has been continuously leveraging to better improve the way it delivers its services. Firstly, companies should harness data meaningfully to help optimise manpower and time resources, as this can help to enable more efficient pick-ups and prompt deliveries. Secondly, develop a system that allows clear and quick communication between fleet managers and drivers to identify any unexpected problems or issues honestbee provides on-demand grocery delivery service in 16 cities across eight countries in Asia. It has also extended its business to food and laundry delivery.