GoCardless helps DeliveryApp target Multi-billion pound same-day delivery market

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedApr 20222 min read

DeliveryApp is disrupting the same-day delivery industry by combining technology with a strong focus on sustainable operations, ethical treatment of drivers, and a more transparent customer experience. It solves long-standing scalability challenges by connecting fully vetted couriers with customers, via a fully integrated tech platform that provides all the delivery information at their fingertips.

“We’re deliveries on-demand,” said Justin Blackhurst, Digital Marketing Director and Co-founder, DeliveryApp. “The logistics industry is very fragmented and archaic, with local firms taking jobs over the phone or email and manually processing ad hoc quotes. But customers can post a job on our platform in under 30 seconds and have a driver booked within five minutes.”

The company’s community of self-employed drivers benefit from competitive rates of pay and payment in seven days versus industry-standard 30- or 60-day terms. The company also offers access to mental health support services and drivers of electric vehicles earn more per mile. “For us, it’s more than just a commercial success, we want to be the world’s most ethical and sustainable courier business too, delivering a better future,” said Justin.

[en-GB] DeliveryApp customer story blog image

The multi-billion-pound opportunity

DeliveryApp originally launched offering only card payments, but regular courier users and larger companies value the lower admin and increased efficiency of paying monthly. It needed to find a dependable partner for processing bank payments to realign its experience with customer expectations and enable it to target a bigger class of company.

“Cards are a massive stumbling block for the bigger companies we’re now pitching to,” said Justin. “These organisations aren’t keen on the potential mess of having dozens or hundreds of people paying suppliers with different company cards. So, we turned to GoCardless to offer direct bank payments that function as lines of credit for these customers. The same-day delivery market is worth around £15 billion*. With GoCardless we have the potential to get bigger customers on board so it has the potential to unlock millions in revenue.

This improved payments journey will be a vital factor in DeliveryApp securing approved supplier status, with larger customers coming on board in recent weeks such as Travis Perkins, a builders' merchant and home improvement retailer with 560 branches in the UK. “Cards are unworkable when multiple branches are involved,” said Justin. “With big customers, we can just offer a supplier code to allow them to create an account with the agreed upon credit limits. We think GoCardless will transform the grade of customer we can now access.”

Everyone loves to get paid – on time, every time

Justin believes that the operational benefits of collecting payments through GoCardless will grow as the company scales, particularly in terms of optimising backend finance processes for both DeliveryApp and its customers. “GoCardless is an absolute blessing from a finance manager's point of view and over the next 12 months, we expect it to save at least 1,000 hours for both us and our customers. We’re also excited to see how we can benefit from Instant Bank Pay, GoCardless’ open banking feature that will allow us to take one-off bank payments from our customers.”

This all speaks to the high degree of overlap between the two companies observed by Justin, culturally as well as the technology-enabled outcomes they each strive to deliver for customers.

“I understand GoCardless to be – like us – a progressive company with a strong social conscience and committed to collaborating for the greater good,” he said. “This will help GoCardless to become a key part of our platform. Everyone loves to get paid and if we are not getting paid promptly and reliably then there's a whole stack of people that will be impacted. But with the automation, reliability and seamless customer experience enabled by GoCardless, we’re turning payments from a function of doing business into a feature of our business. It will be fundamental to ensure we meet the expectations of our customers and deliver on our promise to treat drivers fairly.”

**Courier and express delivery market report - Mintel, April 2021.