Can the same route optimization software be use for E-commerce delivery and direct store delivery? If not, what is different between the two?
Although the two are very similar, one important difference is dynamism; in many e-commerce settings (same-day delivery and anything faster than that), the delivery system frequently operates concurrently with order acceptance and processing, and delivery routes must be planned while orders are still coming in.
There are at least two other major differences between B2C E-commerce deliveries and B2B DSD periodic deliveries:
- While many E-commerce deliveries have little control over volume of orders each day, with DSD periodic deliveries the supplier typically has control over the days when a customer can order. This allows planners to improve efficiency by balancing workloads over days and clustering customers into compact groups to form the basis for daily routes.
- Also, driver familiarity with customers they serve is typically much less important for E-commerce than for DSD deliveries because customer service time is small. DSD customer service time on a route is often bigger than travel time. Driver familiarity with customers significantly decreases both service time and service time variability. Dynamic route optimization continually changes routes to decrease travel, reducing driver familiarity. So, while dynamic route optimization may be good for E-commerce delivery, it is often bad for DSD.