How Delivery Services Can Help Fight the Coronavirus Outbreak

Over the last few weeks, much of the world has seen a drastic shift in how we operate as a society. Current safety measures include limited in-person interactions, which obviously has a massive impact on many businesses across the globe.

Credit card operator Barclaycard recently conducted a survey that found consumers are avoiding shopping malls, high streets and commercial districts in favour of online shopping.

This presents a unique opportunity for online businesses to expand their product offering to provide consumers with the essentials. This might include hand sanitizer, toilet paper and non-perishable food products.

As for brands that operate under a pick-up or delivery method, the current situation offers a chance to ease the pressure being felt by communities everywhere.

How can delivery services help fight the coronavirus outbreak?

‍App-based delivery platforms like GrubHub, DoorDash and Postmates have already announced that they will temporarily defer marketing commissions and/or subscription payments for small businesses, in an effort to keep their partners alive.

From the consumer side of things, Chipotle Mexican Grill has waived all delivery fees until the end of March. The food chain is also packaging orders in tamper-proof bags.

These are just a few examples of how delivery services and small independent businesses can improvise and work together during this difficult time, both to keep themselves afloat and to meet their customers’ changing needs.

Here are a few measures that delivery services can immediately implement to help with the coronavirus outbreak:

1. Support local businesses

Pick-up and delivery services can facilitate cash flow for small independent businesses by:

• - extending free trial periods
• - temporarily waiving or reducing marketing commissions
• - expanding service areas
• - expanding hours of operation

This can make a huge difference at a time when people are ordering more take-out food and shopping online.

2. Ramp up home delivery operations

As demand for home deliveries is currently much higher than usual, businesses in this industry can best help the community by expanding operations.

This can be achieved by hiring new employees on a temporary basis, which in turn helps people who have suddenly found themselves without a job for the time being.

So long as the proper measures are taken to maintain a high level of hygiene and protect customers and staff alike, there’s no reason why delivery services can’t keep up with increasing demand.

3. Adjust offerings to cater for what products and services are currently in high demand

A Melbourne fish and chip restaurant has transformed into a temporary pop-up shop for fresh fish, ready-to-eat meat, seasonal produce, pasta, eggs, milk, salad and other items that are becoming increasingly difficult to find in supermarkets and grocery stores.

While this example doesn’t directly relate to delivery services, it clearly illustrates how businesses can adapt or extend their product/service listings to help ease the pressure being put on large department stores and supermarkets right now.

4. Communicate these changes to your customers

If your business has a website and offers shipping, delivery or courier services, now is the time to broadcast that information to your customers.

Send an e-newsletter to your subscribers, or a push notification to your loyalty program members (if you operate a digital loyalty app) to inform them of these changes.

Any combination of the above initiatives is how delivery services can help fight the coronavirus outbreak.

Right now, creating strong customer connections is more important than ever. As a provider of digital loyalty technology, Stamp Me is in a unique position to help businesses with this.

Our loyalty platform provides a direct communication channel to your customers, and our team is available to help you with strategies for utilizing the program to get customers back in your store once things begin to return to normal.

Aside from extending our free trial period to three months, we’re also adapting our service to be suitable for online businesses and delivery service providers.

If you don’t already have a website for your business, we can assist you with getting online, creating an e-commerce site, adjusting your existing site, or any other technical issues you may be experiencing.

Get in touch to speak to a member of our team about your current situation and how we may be able to help.