Crowdshipping might seem the ultimate solution for city logistics, though executing a seamless operation with outdated systems can be a hassle. If the correct tools are not used properly, companies could spend too much time labeling, sorting and routing shipments .
Some companies take up to 2 hours to authorize drivers to start their route. This is not a business model for UBER-like systems where couriers will wait a maximum of 5 minutes at any given stop before marking it as undeliverable.
Route creation and address issues
Consolidation and route creation is a game changer for crowd-shipping where trucks, vans and light electric vehicles play an important role to dispatch hundreds of packages per driver during the day. One key solution for a better fulfilment processes is to migrate from manual whiteboard routes scheduling to an optimized route planning and consolidation software based in the geo-spatial data obtained from shipping addresses.
Once in transit, drivers commonly need to use address references and GPS-apps to effectively arrive to the customer’s doorbell, leaving shippers the task of providing the right geolocated information to the courier. This is a critical obstacle in Latin American countries, where even Google Maps has trouble finding unnamed streets.
Shippify
Shippify is a technology company that uses sophisticated software tools on top of crowdsourced methodologies to connect vehicle owners with companies that need them to transport goods.
Shippify currently operates in the main cities of Latin America, focusing its solutions in emerging markets, where the principle objective is to create an on-demand and cost-effective last-mile logistics answer that optimizes the supply chain.
Dynamic planning and real-time tracking are the standard but Shippify wanted to go beyond that simple website that exchanges live information, adding end-user participation to fix the unstructured and wrong shipping information and creating a new solution that takes advantage of courier-customer collaborative communication. Customers are able to fix address issues and suggest local references to help couriers before they depart.
Read the full article by Luis Loaiza about Shippify here.
