The Web-based floral and gift retailer has announced a partnership with Deliv, a peer-to-peer network of shoppers and delivery people designed to give customers the choice of receiving their items whenever and wherever they want. The news comes at a time when consumers’ options for same-day delivery are growing via services such as eBay Now, AmazonFresh and Google Shopping Express.

“We can plug our existing Floral Delivery network into Deliv’s crowdsourced model and be the ‘crowd’ for them in some markets, which could increase our local florist profitability by increasing our delivery densities, which will lower our overall costs,” said Don LaFrance, vice president of logistics and supply chain solutions at 1800Flowers.com, New York.

“For our customers, an enhanced delivery experience is key and Deliv provides 1800Flowers.com with some of the tools we think are critical in today’s changing landscape,” he said.

Increased flexibility
1800Flowers is an early adopter of optimizing its online and mobile shopping experience.

The company launched a mobile optimized Web site six years ago and started tapping into applications three and a half years ago.

Vigorously investing in new ways to improve customer service, an executive from the company revealed that the brand is investing in mobile fingerprinting to track activity across devices on 200 different HTTP headers. The company discovered that with more consumers browsing but not necessarily shopping on mobile, their attention should be towards turning the growing mobile traffic into a sale (see story).

Along with the customer-based innovations 1800Flowers has relied on in the past, it’s employment of Deliv works directly with retailers to add a same-day delivery option into their checkout process online on mobile or in retail stores.

This enables retailers to maintain a direct relationship with customers without the need to redirect retailer’s customers to a third party to transact and arrange same-day delivery.

Deliv has partnered with nearly 100 national and regional retailers, as well as the four largest mall operators.

Deliv’s same-day local delivery service promises tech-savvy shoppers their merchandise for the same price or less than having items shipped traditionally.

“Deliv’s crowdsourced model allows for more driver flexibility and increased package densities from other retailers which will drive down the company’s costs,” Mr. LaFrance said.

The enhanced delivery experience will also allow consumers to schedule deliveries during time windows when the recipient is likely to be at home.

Quality and care
Deliv drivers receive delivery tasks via GPS-enabled smartphones. Customers are able to rate their deliveries so the platform is able to prioritize the allocation of jobs to those with the highest ratings.

Customers can also watch their delivery on a map in real-time from pick-up to their desired destination.

“In addition to giving our customers real time tracking so they know where the delivery is in all facets of the process, Deliv provides 1800Flowers.com customers with the ability to create a video, expressing their sentiments, that can be played for the recipient at the point of delivery – a feature that enhances the gifting experience for both the customer and recipient,” Mr. LaFrance said.

Final Take:
Michelle Saettler is editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily