18 listopada, 2024

Perfecting your PUDO Network

Credit: Marek Rozycki & DALL E

The definitive and independent guide from Last Mile Experts


E-commerce and, increasingly importantly, re-commerce are growing fast, and the success of any last mile carrier now hinges on being able to develop commercially tenable and customer centric out of home (OOH) operations due to their cost, operational efficiency (lack of alternative methods to offer tenable capacity) as well as their green last mile benefits. This is a big deal and markets without developed OOH capability such as North and South America have suffered at peak times due to lack of labour and operational capacity. Clients regularly ask about how to choose the right smart locker for their business. 

Accordingly Last Mile Experts has created a series of four white papers covering key areas to look at: 

  • Selecting the right hardware 
  • Selecting the right software 
  • Creating the right network 
  • Perfecting your PUDO 

This document aims to cover all the key elements you need to look at to perfect your PUDO network.  

Further white papers, which complement this one, covering the other three above mentioned areas, will give you a holistic picture of how to create the right OOH network for your business giving TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) savings, a better CX (Customer Experience) and products and scalable processes that will work…we know, because we’ve helped dozens of companies get this right. In fact, our team have managed from scratch or helped to develop successful OOH networks, throughout the globe, for InPost, eMAG/SameDay, Allegro, DPD/La Poste, UPS, Australia Post or Trendyol/Alibaba.  

More importantly, we have also made or carefully analysed a few mistakes on the way…ones that we can help you avoid!  

In this document we have collected experiences from the perspective of a logistics operator, e-commerce marketplace player, pure last-mile provider and hardware producer. Each case is different and please remember there are rarely two identical situations.  

Finally, all these proven tips are included in Last Mile Expert’s unique “Perfecting PUDO’s and Lockers” workshop, details of which can be found here: https://lastmileexperts.com/workshops/ 

Photo credit: nicelocal.mx 

Tip 1: Understanding what PUDO’s are…and are not 

For clarity a PUDO (pick up drop off) point is a designated point where customers can pick up or drop off parcels for return or shipment. These points are not generally dedicated solely to parcel services. 

A parcel shop is a dedicated store or outlet that offers a wide range of parcel and/or postal services, including shipping, receiving, returns, packaging, and sometimes postal banking services. 

Both of the above perform effectively the same role from a parcel perspective, albeit PUDO’s leverage existing facilities and therefore don’t incur significant fixed costs and allow for significantly faster scalability benefits. 

A generic term for both, often used in the US is “access point”, but for simplicity and, as the full benefits accrue from non-dedicated PUDO points, we will focus on these for the rest of this article. 

Tip 2: PUDO’s place in OOH as well as their Strengths & Weaknesses: 

While lockers are considered to be a super-hot topic and 90% of calls, we receive at Last Mile Experts relate to setting up a locker based OOH network, PUDO’s are an integral part of any successful network, and are often the first priority when setting up from scratch. 

Here are some of the reasons for this: lockers are expensive and need time to be installed, or removed. The best solution to quickly achieve density via a traditional PUDO network and to then prudently add lockers in selected locations, over time, and develop a mixed network. Moreover, lockers can be used where suitable PUDO locations are unavailable, or where volumes are higher than a PUDO can handle (ca. 50 parcels per day is usually the limit for PUDOs, even at peak). Over time, lockers can be introduced in economically viable locations...

 

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