4 Tips on How to Handle Coronavirus as a Small Delivery Business Owner
Small delivery businesses have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, but many have found creative ways to stay afloat.
According to research by small business marketing platform, FiveStars, customer visits to local businesses in the U.S. and Canada dropped by 70 percent between March 8 and April 12. It doesn’t take a statistician to realize that losing that many customers in one month represents a serious blow.
But not every small business is collapsing. With a significant amount of determination, creativity, and reskilling, some small businesses have found unique ways to reach their customers despite the chaos.
Our focus right now is getting small delivery businesses the help they need. If you’re a small delivery business owner that is dealing with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, read on. Here, we’ve compiled some tips to navigate a crisis and help you take advantage of the coronavirus stimulus bill.
Start Cutting Costs
If you haven’t laid anyone off yet, it’s imperative to start cutting costs as much as possible to avoid that outcome. To do so, start breaking down your fixed and variable costs.
Our focus right now is getting small delivery businesses the help they need. If you’re a small delivery business owner that is dealing with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, read on. Here, we’ve compiled some tips to navigate a crisis and help you take advantage of the coronavirus stimulus bill.
Start Cutting Costs
If you haven’t laid anyone off yet, it’s imperative to start cutting costs as much as possible to avoid that outcome. To do so, start breaking down your fixed and variable costs.
Fixed costs are ones that recur in the same amount regularly. Things like equipment leases and rent are common fixed costs. Take a look at these expenses and see what you can cut.
If everyone is working from home anyways, consider terminating your office lease, internet, and phone service if it isn’t too costly to do so.
If everyone is working from home anyways, consider terminating your office lease, internet, and phone service if it isn’t too costly to do so.
Start building up a customer list of phone numbers and emails to message more of your customers directly
Building a large database of customer emails and phone numbers is critical to driving more direct orders, so restaurant owners should look for opportunities to build a bigger customer contact list by offering promotions in exchange for customers providing contact information. Xfleet has a special offer features that we’re giving away (for free) during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders to help businesses build their database and organising deliveries in this crazy season. Businesses can use all advanced features, free for two months just by sending us an email.
Start taking online orders Today.
People need food, clean clothes and other services even in a pandemic.
Create a small business online store within 2 Hours.
Restaurants can look into simple website building platforms like Wix, Shopify, or Ecwid to set up a website that enables online ordering without needing any technical knowledge. There are also companies that are more turnkey (a more complete product/setup ready for immediate use) and can help a restaurant owner through the website creation process and online ordering process step by step.
Start taking online orders Today.
People need food, clean clothes and other services even in a pandemic.
Create a small business online store within 2 Hours.
Restaurants can look into simple website building platforms like Wix, Shopify, or Ecwid to set up a website that enables online ordering without needing any technical knowledge. There are also companies that are more turnkey (a more complete product/setup ready for immediate use) and can help a restaurant owner through the website creation process and online ordering process step by step.
Start optimize your delivery routes.
Xfleet Route optimization software can help you find cost-effective routes and start saving today.
Finding the most efficient route deals with many variables, including:
Xfleet Route optimization software can help you find cost-effective routes and start saving today.
Finding the most efficient route deals with many variables, including:
- Delivery time windows
- Vehicle load capacity (weight and/or volume)
- Roads constraints and limitations
- Traffic congestions
- Driver schedule and preferences
- Clients locations and logical areas
You may not have access to dedicated route planners, or the time to learn how. With our routing optimisation software you don’t need to. Our software is designed to be quick to learn and easy to use, with a visual drag-and-drop interface that makes powerful route planning software accessible to everyone.
Live map and Dashboard shows how your drivers are progressing highlighting any deviations from the plan so you can see what’s not working and why.
- View and edit routes for a specific day
- Add new jobs to a specific route or edit existing jobs
- Automatically assign an optimized job to a route
- Reoptimize a single route or selected set of routes
By planning your routes, you can save on fuel costs, boost overall profits, and provide better ETAs and customer service. Optimized routes can help you schedule your deliveries in a logical order, so you can make more efficient use of your vehicles, assets and crew.
The goal is for your drivers to be able to do more work with fewer resources, in fewer miles.
Dispatch jobs directly to drivers and allow them to set job status, collect signatures, photos and notes while at the job site – all from the Xfleet Driver app.
There is no doubt that the ramifications of COVID-19 will continue to be felt for a long time. The global pandemic has exposed the need for smarter last mile delivery, meaning enhanced communication and visibility between dispatchers, drivers and clients.
Xfleet understands the need to cut your cost and to stay connected with your drivers, especially in this difficult times, and provides 2 month free software for small companies. Contact our sales team to learn more or get started with our platform.