Apart from common annoyances like missed packages and wrong timings, deliveries from online shopping also carve out a heavy environmental footprint.
Enter Bond, a new urban shipping company that wants to make online shopping both more sustainable and less annoying for customers by offering delivery services at a neighborhood level, using electric cargo tricycles.
Trying to make the delivery of a product from distributor to the customer as smooth and efficient as possible, Bond has set up “nano distribution centers”. When someone in a neighborhood with such a distribution center places an order in the morning with one of the brands working with the service, they can get a delivery the same afternoon.
It also facilitates direct communication between the deliverer and the customer, to better remove the uncertainties of delivery timing. Using the company’s system, customers can choose delivery times. If someone misses a delivery, the package will go back to the storefront rather than a more distant distribution center. Returns can also be scheduled for pickup.
The company is working with brands that offer perishable goods, like a retailer that ships wild salmon and other fish from Alaska, along with others that sell consumer electronics, cosmetics, and other products. Customers place orders on the brand’s website or app and can schedule delivery there.
What’s more, in order for brands to avoid the carbon footprint of sending packages next-day air on planes, the company looks at data to determine how much stock a neighborhood needs of a particular product in each tiny distribution center.
