Transport: Get it Home for Me

One of the key reasons we go shopping by car instead of public transport is that we can't easily carry our purchases (actual, expected or unanticipated) on the bus or train. Having someone else take them home for you changes this decision process dramatically.

This section discusses:

Existing Provision

What

Although Harrods and other high end stores are used to shipping your shopping home for you, the same cannot be said of the majority of shops. Unless we are buying something too bulky for our car or seriously expensive, we are generally expected to take it home with us - or pay through the nose for someone else to.

How

Some shops do have delivery vehicles that will take your goods home for you but this is often at extra charge, rarely the same day and not always in one piece!

Volume and Frequency

Most of us very rarely have items we've just purchased delivered for us. Most of the time we simply load them into the back of our car and drive them home. This applies especially to our “weekly shop” which for a family of more than one is impractical to carry on a crowded bus or train.

Financial Model

High end goods may have a delivery element built into their pricing.

Bulky goods like building materials may incur a delivery charge - often waived if the purchase value exceeds a threshold.

Providers

These delivers are mostly done by the business selling the items in the first place. Few use specialist delivery firms.

Trends

As we are expected to use less energy and to think twice about having two (or even one) car(s) so we should start to question the wisdom of travelling to shop by car if the sole reason for doing so is that we can't carry our purchases home easily.

With Localnet

What

Any item or set of items that you buy in a shop and which could have been delivered via localnet if you had bought the same things online should be deliverable via localnet in the same way and at the same price as if you had bought it over the internet.

How

Shops offering this service will either take all their customers' shopping to a LocalHub or a delivery van will come to them. Goods for each customer are loaded into one or more  OmniBox and/or placed into the open cargo space on a delivery van. They then enter the localnet system and are delivered along with all the other items going to those addresses.

Volume and Frequency

Collections from shops should be made at least twice a day (lunchtime and around closing time), Items should be on the next delivery round that leaves for that address. Typically items will arrive on the day they were bought or before lunch the next day.

Financial Model

Each time this service is used, it almost certainly means a journey that otherwise would have been made by car has been switched to localnet and public transport. This is therefore to be encouraged rather than treated as a profit opportunity.

The delivery of an  OmniBox of items should probably be priced at around half the cost that the resident would have incurred (including depreciation and wear and tear as well as petrol) of making the same journey by car. However, this needs to be considered alongside the cost of the passenger journey the resident will also have to make. Ideally, it should be demonstrable to the user that the total cost of their shopping trip by localnet was comparable to what it would have been had they gone by car. Then showing them the environmental benefits of the former should help them make the “right” choice more often than not.

Children should probably travel free on this service so as not to penalise parents who would rather not have to go shopping with the kids but cannot leave them at home.

For a small premium, delivery on the next round could be guaranteed. Without this, delivery will be at marginal cost as it will be filling otherwise empty space and can be used to level out peaks in demand.

Providers

Delivery from larger shops such as nearby supermarkets to LocalHubs could be done cost effectively by the supermarkets themselves. Their existing fleets of home delivery vehicles can be used to bring an afternoon's “get it home for me” boxes to each LocalHub in their catchment area.

Smaller shops which may have zero or one customer's purchases on each delivery round would be better served by localnet vans touring the shopping district a few times a day to collect these from a number of shops before heading back to their own LocalHub.

Evolution

An attractive enhancement to this service would be to offer free childcare at the LocalHub through which parents would travel en route to the shopping district(s). The parent can then continue alone to the town, shop and return to pick up their charges before heading home on the OmniVan - potentially finding their shopping got home before them.

As more people shop this way and fewer drive to the shops, so the more traditional, compact town centre of shops becomes more attractive to those who will now be walking from one shop to the next. Out of town, isolated hypermarkets become less attractive to visit as moving on to any other shop means waiting for another bus.

 

Comparison

The table below assesses the impact of localnet on this service on a scale of -5 to +5 (details here)

  Existing services As part of localnet Score
Scope Not offered by most shops today. Available to any shop in a LocalHub's designated shopping district(s). +4
Frequency Service not really available. Same day or next morning delivery. +3
Security Good if in your possession the whole way. In the hands of shop and/or localnet staff. -1
Convenience Not available hence have to carry home on bus or take car. Makes shopping more flexible, no need to return to car. +2
Cost Petrol, wear and tear on car. Ticket to and from town comparable. 0
Quality Hard to beat travelling in your own car. Not as comfortable. -2
Carbon Footprint Heavy if taking own car. Much better as using (shared) public transport. +4
Time Good as long as parking easily available near store. More direct route, fewer stops. Not affected by parking. Buses able to move faster in towns using bus lanes. -1
Resources Used Wears out car faster. Car not used. +1
Reuse & Recycling Wears out car faster. Car not used. +1
Landfill Waste Wears out car fasterr. Car not used.
Other Differentiators Favours out of town shopping. Rejuvenates town centres as parking no longer a factor and ability to walk between shops becomes a significant factor in choosing where to go.

Services