home | media info | archive | supplier guide | registration | jobfinder | events | about us | contact
Beware the king’s new clothes
|
March/April 2003
'Best of breed' home delivery network launched
Smaller e-tailers finding it difficult to tackle the last-mile delivery can benefit from a new company, Home Direct Delivery System. HDDS, a subsidiary of Onboard Courier Worldwide, will collect the e-tailer's goods, sort them, affix bar code labels where necessary, and facilitate complete final delivery to the home consumer. The service is being marketed as a "one stop shop" for all kinds of distance selling, including mail order and online vendors. However, HDDS does not take on the actual delivery of the goods. Instead, it uses a network of seven specialist delivery companies with which it has formed alliances. "We see ourselves as a facilitator," explains Mike Brading, chairman of Onboard Courier, whose own poor home shopping experiences spawned the new concept in home delivery. "We can cherry-pick the best delivery company for each job whichever one is strongest in the relevant part of the country, for example."
Although HDDS owns its own depot in Sittingbourne, Kent, it can utilise the Midlands hubs of its strategic partners. This allows it to cover the whole of the country. Goods within easy reach of Kent are handled at Sittingbourne, while others are "intercepted" en route and processed through a Midlands depot. While larger retailers have sufficient resources to be able to organise effective national delivery and the volumes to make them interesting to delivery companies Brading feels the smaller players don't. "We're pitched more at the companies with a smaller amount of B2C traffic. We have the volumes to obtain economies of scale, and a good price."
|
