How would it be if someone is always there to get things you want and delivered it at your doorstep?
A group is on the rise at your nearest proximity to serve you better with the increasing demand. Let’s dig deeper to understand how it works to make our lives much more comfortable. Postmates is one of a kind that took its inception on May 1, 2011, to fetter technology, logistics, and human courier network to enable people to order anything they want from any store in the city.
Postmates is an on-demand goods delivery Service Company that has disrupted the technology revolution to heights to deliver goods on a sundry to people based on demand. Isn’t it making life simple? GPS coupling with smartphones stands the best combo to source out such outstanding business models. Postmates make the best use of technology. The order placed by the customer gets notified through the mobile device, and GPS is exploited by the company to match the requirement to deliver it to them in a week.
Postmates have obtained a sumptuous amount of funding from investors that have given way for the company to amass a large customer base in no time. Born in 2011, Postmates hit massive success in a quadrennial period. The on-demand service giant is now on a business alliance with McDonald’s, Apple, Walgreens, Starbucks, Chipotle, etc.. in the fortune company.
Postmates is mutating the courier system by connecting anyone around the city to fetch you a product and delivered it to you in less than an hour. The new logistics on-demand system defines the world to be your courier network.
Facts and Figures
Postmates is one of a kind that took its inception on May 1, 2011, to fetter technology, logistics, and human courier network to enable people to order anything that they want from any store in the city.
- Founded by: Sam Street, Sean Plaice and Bastian Lehmann.
- Company Headquartered at: San Francisco, California.
- Standard Order Size: $40
Orders Processed on a Daily Basis - 8 Million monthly orders Source
Number of Merchants - 250,000 Source
Cities Serving - 3500+ Source
Postmates Valuation - $1.85 Bn Source
Funds received by Postmates - As of July, 2019 – $681.5M Source
Remarkable Features of Postmates
- Postmates empowers people to order anything within the city and delivery it to them safely at their doorstep.
- Postmates charges a nominal delivery fee, which depends on the distance covered from the pickup point to the destination.
- Postmates owns and runs specially promoted stores in and around the city.
- Postmates named their delivery partners as postmates.
- Postmate will deliver the product within one hour inside the city.
- A Postmate is always available 24 hours a day and all seven days a week.
- They charge a minimum delivery fee of $5 per delivery. Sometimes postmates give promotional coupon codes to the customer at a discounted rate.
- Customers can do real-time tracking of the delivery person within the app after placing the order.
Value Propositions
- Kitchens opened in all locations
- Option to get food from the city’s top-rated chefs
- Frequent change in menu
- Well experienced chefs
- Part-time workforce for deliveries
Postmates operates on a Quaternary step model
The curtain raiser for the postmates’ business model is that it knows the customer's needs and deliver them accordingly. Customers can use the desktop or the smartphone app to place the request and get things delivered at their doorstep in less than one hour.
Mode of Payment
Postmates handles the complete payment process all by themselves. Postmates will add the delivery fare to the actual price of the requested product. Only after completing the payment your order will be confirmed. The delivery charge depends on the distance between pickup location and destination.
The Matching Mechanism
Once the order is confirmed, the request gets passed on to the postmate who is waiting closest to the store. The postmate will then shop your needs and get it delivered at your doorstep within an hour either by bike or car. The customer app and postmates app gets routed in such a way that they will be able to deliver the product within the stipulated time of one hour.
Track Orders and Tips
One spectacular feature pinned to the business model is that the customers can track the whereabouts of the delivery guy as to where he is during the process of shopping the order until he reaches your doorstep. Postmates have an option to text the customer in case if there is any delay. Customers can tip the postmate within the app as per their convenience. Most of the customers try to be kind to postmates and tip them on most of the orders.
Customer Relationship
A business is known to be successful when it has a strong bond with the customers, to retain them with efficient business strategies. You can use customers as one source of advertising only if you satisfy your existing customers as they will share their experiences with their friends and families. It is nothing but the art of “Word of Mouth,” where the formula works to help you build your business better when your existing happy customers promote your business and bring in new customers.
Postmates have outplayed customer relationship, and it abides by the following saying:
One Customer Well Taken Care could be More Valuable than $10000 worth of Advertising – JIM ROHN
Social Media: Share your business updates through social media websites. Share the latest deals, discounts, and new arrivals through the social media platform to reach out to your customers. Postmates exploit Social Media in the right way.
Customer Support: Retaining customers is no small feat. Postmates is backed up by an efficient customer support team to help their customers to answer their queries and solve their issues instantly.
Review, Rating & Feedback System: Postmates has a comprehensive review, rating, and feedback system. It will help the company to understand the shortfalls of the business to help other customers to know how Postmates as a company is servicing its customers by provoking them with a let-me-try thought.
Customer Segments
Postmates caters 3 different customer segments
Customers: Postmates somehow convinces people to pay the extra price than the actual cost of the ordered product as they can get it delivered at their doorstep in just a single tap.
Merchants: Postmates partners with merchandisers and connects them to their medium with the customers who ask for their products. Merchants tip a percentage of the order bill value to Postmates for their doorstep delivery service. Merchants find it economical to share a portion of the purchased goods to the delivery network than to hire an employee of their own to deliver the goods to their customers.
Courier Personnel: People who are looking out to earn extra money to their pockets as per their convenient schedule can be a part of the human courier network. The delivery personnel is called postmates. The business model follows shared math, with 80% of the delivery fees to the delivery guys, and 20% of the fare is to the company’s deep pocket. As per the postmates’ payment schema, a delivery guy can earn up to $25/hour.
Value Propositions
Postmates have done good homework to furnish logistics on the user’s demand, and this stands as a value proposition to customers. The business model provides remarkable value propositions for its customer segments and also accommodates delivery personnel and local store merchants.
Values to Customers:
- Customers can order anything from the local stores
- Postmates is available 24/7/365
- Orders get delivered at the doorstep within an hour
Values to Store Merchants:
- Store merchants can get access to a large customer base
- They can also serve their regular customers through Postmates
- They have to pay an affordable commission to the postmates delivery guy
Values to Delivery Guys:
- Flexible working time
- 80% of the delivery charges are paid to the delivery partners
- Earnings are directly proportional to the number of deliveries successfully done by the postmate
Revenue Model that unveils the Success Story
- Start-ups have to frame the revenue models with much prudence by looking at it with a futuristic approach. ROI is the result to prove the success rate of any business. Postmates look at its revenue model as a mainstay for the company’s outplayed success.
- You have to mediate between the customer segments, and you can earn a commission from each of the customer segments. It is the simple revenue plan hacked by postmates.
3 Sources of Income
- Delivery Fee
- Convenience Fee
- Merchant Agreement
Delivery Fee: Postmates put a commission fee on customers who demand an order to be delivered at their doorstep. The delivery charges start from a minimum of $5 and could be a bit high depending on the location and could be less in case of any festival offers. 80% of the fee goes to the delivery partner while the remaining 20% goes to postmate management.
Convenience Fee: For every order, postmates add a 9% convenience fee to the customers as they deliver it directly to their home.
Merchant Agreement: Postmates partners with lots of local store merchants to get discounted rates on products. The deal also intends that the local store merchant has to pay a percentage of the order bill to postmates so that it will add up to their revenue.
Postmates have raised the curtain to the newly trending logistics industry to deliver the order based on the demand. The business layout creates a novel approach to service customers at its best. Postmates business and revenue model is undoubtedly one of the pilot systems of an on-demand delivery industry that survives with the software application interface to process speedy delivery to the specific customer in less than one hour.