Digitised courier services: Silver bullet for e-commerce delivering conundrum
Courier services have evolved continuously since ancient Greece created the concept of messengers, further developing them into a significant industry in Persia. The courier industry has grown beyond the primary function of delivering communications to their intended recipients into a billion-dollar business.
Recent technological advances, the advent of e-commerce and substantial online stores and thousands of other businesses that accept orders online and deliver products to customers, have contributed to the recent growth in online commerce.
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As a result of the pandemic, courier services have grown significantly compared to many other businesses that went bankrupt. Courier services are a sine qua non to effective online trading businesses.
Enterprises
Even though individuals make up a small number of courier service consumers, courier services primarily serve businesses. Here are some of the major enterprises that courier companies serve:
• E-commerce: Most online businesses and online retailers deliver goods to their customers using courier services.
• Groceries: Each grocery store and chain store can collaborate with a courier company that offers a delivery service.
• Restaurants: Restaurants are one of the top customers of courier services. Most restaurants do not have their couriers, so they use the services of couriers to deliver food.
• Pharmacies: For pharmacies that supply medicine to their customers, they can send orders via courier services.
• Beverages: Beverage outlets, like the other businesses mentioned, use courier services.
Small shops
There are also a variety of small shops in every industry, such as cosmetic shops, stationary distributors, restaurants and local spare parts dealers, that need courier services.
In recent years, the increasing popularity of e-commerce has become a driving force behind the development of digitised courier service both in Ghana and worldwide.
In order to face growing competition on courier market and meet clients’ expectations, one of the crucial strategic goals of courier operators is to provide high quality digitised courier service.
Courier service, which is a special kind of service that provides the fastest means of sending documents and merchandise, has recently become a critical link in logistics supply chains of many trading, manufacturing and service companies. Recently, courier, express and parcel market (CEP) has developed dynamically worldwide and this trend will be maintained in the coming years.
The value of the global courier market amounted to $306 billion in 2018, and according to forecasts it will reach $400 billion by 2024, which means an increase of eight to 10 per cent annually (Statista, 2019).
The value of European CEP sector has been growing recently by seven per cent annually while the volume of shipment has been growing by eight per cent.
Courier services, businesses
Certainly, courier services are beneficial to society in general and have become of enormous assistance to humanity since they were severely affected during the COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine period.
Despite this, these products can be received from home and people can remain at home. Courier services are an integral part of many companies’ logistics.
Their absence ends in the last-mile sector. It is argued that courier services are so important today that their absence poses an issue for individuals and enterprises alike.
Enhance welfare
Among the essential benefits that courier services provide is their contribution to improving people’s welfare. Before courier services and delivery enterprises expanded to the degree they do today, people had to leave their homes or offices to make necessary purchases and prepare and carry their items. We can now order products from around the globe and have them delivered to our door at a particular time.
One advantage of courier services is the speed at which things are delivered. In this regard, courier companies compete to improve dispatch times. Additionally, courier companies strive to be more punctual, to respect and serve their clients better.
Increasing efficiency
Even though courier services come in a variety of price ranges, they are usually an affordable alternative. Shipments are generally delivered using on-demand courier services, which pick up packages and then optimise their delivery routes using digitised system, route planning and route optimisation to lower delivery costs.
Some courier services in Ghana provide the fastest means of sending documents and merchandise across to business partners and relatives, both domestic and abroad.
The aim to develop and grow mutual relationship with business partners, especially E-commerce and other online trading businesses to resolve their delivery challenges through the use of technology (delivery App & usage of delivery devices by dispatch riders) and improved fleet of motorbikes and vehicles anchored on enhance monitoring, which have contributed to operational and delivery excellence.
The courier companies can take their services to a new high with the use of technology, which has become a silver bullet for delivery challenges for E-commerce companies.
The writer is a Chartered Management Consultant. E-mail: [email protected]
