Delivering goods in inner cities is currently facing major inefficiencies.

If a local shop wants to ship a good to its customer, the parcel will be dropped at the nearby post office, moved to a distribution center in a suburban area and assigned to a delivery route within the next days.

Thus, customers often face moral issues when ordering online because they are aware of the environmental effects of their behavior. Additionally, they are increasingly demanding high standards in terms of speed and convenience of their delivery. This puts retailers in a critical situation whilst always having large competitors like Amazon in mind.

The team “glocally” learned that in several studies and their own research: online shoppers want delivery services that are convenient, fast and leave a minimum carbon footprint.

Bike delivery seems to be a promising path.

The team is aiming for a sustainable ship-from-store solution for urban retailers that enables them to tackle the three problems of speed, sustainability and convenience. By connecting local stores with bike couriers, retailers are able to ship on-demand from their store - enabled by a software platform.

Envisioning a smart app for courier bikers, convenient interface for shoppers to track the awaited deliveries and a backend for retailers to manage the incoming orders. But first things first: the team identified the order management for retailers as the most crucial part.

During the 3 months in DPS, the team launched a first prototype of an order management tool that already convinced a few first retailers to offer this sustainable delivery to their customers.