When the entire country went into lockdown, when shops were shut and businesses were temporarily closed, everyone turned to e-commerce. But there was one problem: Even e-commerce delivery was prohibited in many localities. Containment zones — areas with heavy COVID-19 caseload — were cordoned off, preventing delivery personnel from entering.
For sellers, this resulted in several challenges:
Loss of revenue: As deliveries could not be completed, sellers faced a sharp increase in returns and cancellations. This resulted in a significant loss of opportunity for many players.
Operational inefficiency: Cancelling, returning, rescheduling and delayed deliveries took a toll on the operational efficiencies built by sellers and logistics companies. A lot of time and labour was lost in these activities.
Dissatisfied customers: While most customers understood the unprecedented situation, they were also disappointed that they couldn’t get the product they wanted and paid for. More importantly, they were dissatisfied that e-commerce companies couldn’t inform them in advance whether the product can be delivered or not.
Until the pandemic was overcome, e-commerce players had no way to prevent this situation. It is here that Shipacko leveraged machine learning technologies to identify whether a locality is a containment zone or not and enable express delivery.
Introducing AddFix
Addfix is a proprietary address disambiguation service that leverages machine learning techniques to convert addresses into a consumable form.
Post that, it helps you confirm mobility in delivery destinations by verifying if the customer’s address falls in a containment zone.
How Addfix works?
Optimising revenue opportunities: By identifying the localities that cannot be delivered to, AddFix helped sellers focus on customers who they can serve. This way, their efforts were redirected to areas where express delivery was possible, and revenue opportunities were higher.
Increased productivity: Addfix provided clear visibility on the delivery situation. As a result, sellers were able to decline orders even before payment, reducing the pressure on logistics staff significantly.
Improved efficiency: AddFix helps reduce returns and cancellations, saving logistics costs. It also helped save time and energy of the logistics staff, enhancing their efficiency.
Satisfied customers: No failed orders, no disgruntled customers. Sellers were able to inform customers even before placing the order that it cannot be delivered. This encouraged them to return and check again later.
Other AddFix use cases
Address disambiguation can play a transformative role in e-commerce delivery in India. Converting addresses into latitude and longitude coordinates — using geocoding — has many benefits. Each house can be easily placed on a map for the delivery personnel to navigate effortlessly. This reduces the number of phone calls that the delivery personnel need to make to the customer. Real-time tracking is possible, giving better visibility to the customer.
With the geocoding coordinates, e-commerce logistics companies can also identify accurately whether they can deliver to a locality or not. This can come in handy during natural disasters like the pandemic or floods and during special situations like elections, dry days, regional holidays, etc.
