Changes in consumer demand paired with global supply chain disruptions present a unique challenge for businesses. Consumers expect increasingly faster delivery and companies of all sizes must compete for their attention.
Businesses often struggle to create ultra-reliable final-mile solutions without stringing together regional partners or managing a fleet of their own — both costly in time and overhead.
Amazon’s recent growth of its same-day delivery services and Walmart’s expansion of its online order fulfillment centers enable same-day delivery to millions of Americans. These logistical powerhouses are focused on scaling up their own supply chains in response to increasingly stringent consumer demand, which leaves companies scrambling to keep up.
If they don’t have their own internal supply chain, companies must find and patch together partnerships with disparate regional carriers across the country, which offer varying delivery speeds, degrees of reliability and transparency. These conventional routes of building a shipping business take years and require heavy investment in transportation infrastructure. As a result, many businesses have found that traditional ways of conducting business don’t allow for quick responses to changes in the market.
However, there’s a new offering that solves for reliability, scale and speed. Mothership’s same-day freight marketplace injects modern software into an industry still lagging behind in technology adoption, opening doors for shippers that will directly allow them to break into new markets and build consistent and dependable service with low overall damage rates.
“What we’re able to do is help customers build out a reliable transportation network with low damage rates and cost,” said Russell Hoch, chief sales officer at Mothership. “They don’t need to buy their own fleet of trucks and they don’t need to maintain an adequate carrier pool.”
Through the tech platform, customers are able to leverage the reliability of a nationwide same-day delivery network while reducing the risks associated with managing a fleet or traditional less-than-truckload carrier partnerships. Hoch’s previous experience in the industry made him hyperaware of the many inefficiencies in the freight market and at Mothership, and he’s working on bringing the final mile into the future.
Mothership’s growing network of more than 26,000 box trucks across the U.S. empowers businesses to deliver into nearly 10,000 ZIP codes, serving 122 million people across the country without having to build out any additional infrastructure.
Booking and delivering locally the same day is possible across 37 major U.S. metro areas, including Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, New York, Chicago and Miami. Companies are able to pair same-day delivery with choice resources that enable them to provide consignees with a seamless and convenient delivery experience.
“Everyone faces the same challenge: Not every location you’re picking up from or delivering to has a dock, and therefore you need a liftgate,” Hoch said. “When you get into more residential areas, it’s very hard to maneuver much larger tractors with 53-foot trailers or even pups [small trailers] in tow.”
Whether it be a warehouse with loading docks or residence, each delivery location has its unique challenges. Equipping all Mothership box trucks with liftgates ensures consistency and the ability to overcome those delivery challenges and lower damage risk.
Mothership creates consistency and reliability in an otherwise disjointed and murky industry. In addition to providing robust local networks, the company also gives shippers the real-time tracking they need to keep customers happy and informed.
From the moment loads are matched, last-mile efficiency begins. Instead of partnering with uncompromising carriers or turning to costly load boards for last-minute orders, shipments are auto-allocated to nearby trucks.
Once a shipper tenders a load, the system aggregates routes automatically, and trucks are instantly dispatched to carriers without the need for rate negotiation. This means freight gets loaded quickly and in turn increases on-time percentages by eliminating back and forth. Advances in real-time location data and smartphone adoption have made live tracking possible for all same-day shipments. This gives shippers and customers the ability to reliably know the location of their freight in real time. Carriers, shippers and consignees are all kept up to date.
“We ensure the freight is going to be picked up on time and delivered on time,” Hoch said. “At the same time, we also reduce the chance of damage or lost freight.”
Mothership’s tracking technology brings visibility to a step in the supply chain typically wrought with vague updates and lost freight.
Through the automated routing feature, optimal routes are generated in seconds, so carriers serve more customers in less time. Automated routing and optimization allow for same-day delivery and enable Mothership carriers to maintain a 99% on-time delivery rate.
Instead of making countless phone calls to pin down the location of shipments, shippers can track them from pickup to delivery in real time and on one dashboard. They can view trucks moving along optimized and automated routes on a map and see updates as soon as trucks arrive at each new location.
In the event of changes or delays, shippers can receive notifications right away and see the status change in their activity log. This is fully accessible by their consignees, including warehouse managers, reducing the need for manual updates.
“Mothership brings tech to a tech-poor industry,” said Timothy Fehr, director of operations at Happy Returns, which found Mothership as the company was looking for freight partners that could accommodate its needs. “We explored Mothership’s platform, played around with quoting and the rates turned out to be cost-effective.”
By facilitating simple and intuitive freight matching, with the flexibility of same-day delivery, Mothership helps shippers achieve reliability that will allow them to grow their businesses into new markets across the country.