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News

Open Routing solutions optimize the delivery of groceries during the epidemic

Apr. 27, 2020

The current epidemic is testing, with varying results, services and technological solutions used in many areas of our lives. Some, such as telemedicine or teleconferencing and remote collaboration software, are gaining unprecedented popularity. It seems that for some technologies, the pandemic has become a turning point – users have become convinced by the circumstances, but many will continue to use them also after the end of the emergency. One of such solutions may be e-grocery. For companies operating in this industry – such as Open Routing, a portfolio company of the INNOventure fund – now is the time of hard work and development.

Open Routing is the creator and operator of the e-grocery supply management platform. An effective solution of the so-called last mile problem, that is common in this industry, is the AI-based booking system developed by Open Routing. Its special features include the flexible length delivery windows. The order acceptance and fulfillment process is optimized based on business variables: deliveries always available to selected customers, preferring most profitable customers, dynamic management of delivery orders based on current and anticipated demand. Thanks to these solutions, the Open Routing booking engine not only increases the efficiency of deliveries during periods of maximum load, but also optimizes them in terms of profitability. It is able to increase the efficiency of deliveries by about 20%, while reducing their cost by about 15%. The Open Routing system is offered in the Software as a Service model.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, Frisco.pl, an online grocery store that uses Open Routing technology, has provided Warsaw customers with 6.5 million products of a total weight of 4,000 tons. The system successfully passes the exam, optimizing tens of thousands of orders. Even with orders placed up to June, hundreds of new booking windows are opened daily. Using Open Routing solutions, the company is able to provide its most loyal customers with an additional pool of available delivery times.

Companies from the e-grocery sector are currently growing at an enormous pace. Eurocash is planning to hire thousands of new employees. Biedronka has expanded the availability of its delivery system by 6 new cities – now it is available in 16. Żabka has just launched a pilot e-grocery program. The Rzeszów-based food chain Frac launched e-shopping in Warsaw, Rzeszów, Krosno, Sanok and Jarosław. The sale of organic food is also gaining a new scale on the Internet – Organic Farma Zdrowia has just opened in Warsaw the largest magazine in Poland for the online sale of organic food. The industry insiders, when asked by Nielsen, estimate that the share of e-grocery can grow to up to 5% of the FMCG market. The development of the industry also increases the Polish market for IT solutions for logistics, specialized in handling e-grocery. The Open Routing offer has been created and optimized precisely for this sector.