Via.Delivery First to Market with Next-Gen Alternative Delivery Service to Reduce Shipping Costs for Shopify E-Commerce Retailers and Shoppers
Via.Delivery’s alternative delivery location network enables online retailers to offer shoppers unprecedented choice and convenience for parcel pick up at more than 20,000 U.S. locations.
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“E-commerce is booming and, with COVID, the shipping and delivery markets have gone through the roof,” said Mitchell Nikitin, CEO and Co-Founder, Via.Delivery. “At the same time, online shoppers are increasingly sensitive to high shipping costs, which cause 56% of them to abandon their carts. As a result, non-Amazon online retailers lose billions of dollars in sales revenue each year. Via.Delivery has solved this problem to enable the millions of online retailers that don’t have brick and mortar locations to compete with Amazon and traditional retailers.”
Alternative Delivery Location Network
Via.Delivery enables online retailers without physical pick up locations to activate Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS), giving shoppers the option to pick up their packages at more than 20,000 convenient locations across the U.S. In addition to providing pick up locations, Via.Delivery provides the delivery services needed to ship those packages to the locations within its network.
“By combining our 20,000 location strong network with our powerful digital logistics and cloud-based delivery platform, the millions of online retailers that need to provide more affordable shipping options to their customers now have a reliable path forward,” Nikitin said.
“Via.Delivery enables pure play e-commerce merchants to offer low-cost BOPIS shipping options to their customers,” he continued. “For a fraction of the cost, online shoppers can select one of our nearby alternative delivery locations — such as convenience stores, pharmacies, grocery stores and gas stations. They will be alerted when the package is ready for pick up and can collect it while they shop.”
Technology Platform
Via.Delivery’s first-to-market next-gen digital logistics and cloud-based delivery platform makes it easy for e-commerce retailers to:
Activate BOPIS: In just a few clicks, e-commerce retailers — without brick and mortar locations — can now offer Buy Online, Pick up In Store (BOPIS) and give their customers access to more than 20,000 convenient pick up locations.
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Ship orders: Via.Delivery automates shipping label creation, printing and shipping of orders. When the shipping label is created, the technology platform instantly delivers an electronic notification alerting carriers that the e-commerce merchant has a package ready for pick up.
Alert customers of shipping and delivery status: With Via.Delivery e-commerce merchants can meet customer expectations for knowing when packages have shipped and when they will be delivered. The technology tracks the shipped package, instantly delivers a tracking number with an estimated delivery date to the merchant’s customer, and automates delivery notifications that keep the customer informed of the delivery status while the package is en route. Upon arrival at a BOPIS location, the technology instantly alerts the customer the package is available for pick up and provides location information. Additional reminders are delivered as needed to prompt customers to collect packages.
Via.Delivery’s API and Shopify plug-in make it possible for e-commerce merchants to get up and running with BOPIS, almost instantly. “There are more than one million Shopify online stores in the U.S., and that number is growing rapidly year-over-year,” Nikitin said. “Every single one of these merchants now has the opportunity to offer Buy Online, Pick Up In Store options to their customers. This will dramatically improve the customer experience for these merchants.”
“I like Via.Delivery because it allows me to help my customers save money on shipping,” said Sam Means, owner of HelloMerch.com, a Shopify merchant that sells merchandise for hundreds of bands. “We are constantly trying to reduce our shipping rates. But, we aren’t big enough to negotiate deeply discounted rates with carriers. The fact that Via.Delivery is pooling resources together to enable BOPIS and bring lower shipping rates to all e-commerce merchants is a game changer for the industry.”
Online merchants that don’t get BOPIS in place will continue to struggle. In fact, analysts predict they will lose customers to other online retailers that offer shoppers low-cost shipping and the ability to pick up packages at convenient locations, nearby their home or workplace. Via.Delivery is launching a host of new merchants in the coming weeks.
