Dubai: Shoppers want more control over delivery when buying online and logistics providers are now going the extra distance in minimising any barrier that exists. And helping them in the last-mile delivery are the rapid gains made by technology.
One entity filling the need is Dubai-based Jeebly, which was founded in August 2016. “We understood that there is a need for technology for last-mile delivery for e-commerce and food delivery platforms,” said Raman Pathak, CEO.
The industry trend for delivery of e-commerce purchases is between two to three working days, but Jeebly’s benchmark is to have delivery on the same day.
“The concept we worked upon is that whatever purchased today will be delivered today itself,” Pathak added. “We started with food deliveries by reducing the time to half the usual time taken. We are not here to disrupt the whole market ... but there is a need to deliver products on a promised time and we are here to do that.”
Jeebly — which invested Dh5 million to set up the business — has integrated its platform with e-commerce, retailers and food aggregators. It also makes a pickup request for forgotten personal items and its delivery staff will pick it up and deliver at a cost of between Dh50-Dh75.
“Companies with an existing fleet may not be able to meet schedules when the orders are high and then they need to outsource,” the CEO said. “It is better to outsource it to someone who is specialised in that.”
Jeebly has more than 700 drivers and is certified by Dubai Municipality to authorise food deliveries. Pathak said his aim was to penetrate into the top three and also launch traditional courier services.
“The time will come when you can ask Jeebly to get a burger or get clothes from the laundry via voice. We will not be an aggregator, but a last-mile delivery player.
“We will have a Jeebly interactive assistant (JIA) in two months. Go to the Google Assistant and say “Hey JIA”, and she will start talking to you. We have the static content and we want to make it more dynamic.
“We are building a system based on AI, machine learning and neural networks to do automatic sorting of orders and what time they can be delivered. Based on that the orders will go to the drivers.”
Today, to place an order, shoppers need to go the website and fill in the details, and there is no way to communicate with the technology or the system. “We are trying to bring in more efficiency to handle more orders. We want to deliver it at their desired location at any given time rather than their registered address.”
Jeebly, which does 100,000 delivers a month, plans to enter India soon, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in the first quarter, Kuwait in the second, and Oman in the third.“We are able to cater to 2-3 per cent of market demand and to attain a significant market share. We need close to Dh30 million investment to expand into the GCC and India.
“The major cost component in last mile delivery is the operational cost and includes warehouse and operations teams.”
