“Regular people with regular vehicles” are signing on to deliver urgent and oversize customer goods from retailers such as Home Depot, Macy’s, Walmart and Target in largely underserved rural areas via same-day delivery start-up Roadie.
With funding of $62 million to date, $37 million was secured this year with investments from The Home Depot, Warren Stephens and Eric Schmidt’s TomorrowVentures, among others, Roadie’s footprint already surpasses even that of Amazon Prime Now by covering 89 percent of U.S. households with over 120,000 drivers.
Roadie attempts to bridge any disconnect between customer and retailer with its scalable omnichannel solution. Its services, which include rush, same-day or scheduled deliveries for customers, are available in all 50 states.
The company intends to narrow its focus while expanding its footprint through gaining a larger user base (more drivers) and partnering with more retailers to fully actualize “on-the-way” delivery.
According to Valerie Metzker, head of business development at Roadie, the future of retail delivery may be a blend of localized, on-the-way delivery — focusing on smaller towns and using available resources.
Through localizing delivery, customers are provided with “convenience and options” while the “soccer moms” — or everyday citizens with extra time and a ride, can tap into geolocation and machine learning-powered algorithms to connect package to consumer.
“The customer doesn’t care where or who’s delivering,” added Metzker.
As its mission states, anything that fits into a passenger vehicle can be delivered by Roadie. The start-up is working across grocery, apparel and home improvement categories and has partnered with over 100 retailers.
As its footprint shows, negotiating a seamless customer experience without wasted resources improves the scalability of delivery solutions such as Roadie.