Skroutz: Ensuring fast, reliable deliveries with efficient fleet routing and tracking

When it comes to ecommerce delivery, customer expectations have never been higher. For online shoppers in Europe, delivery time is considered by far the most important factor of the experience, with 57% expecting to be able to choose same- or next-day delivery, and 85% saying that a bad delivery experience would put them off ordering from the same retailer again.

Skroutz, one of the largest online marketplaces in Greece, wanted to offer its 8 million monthly users a delivery service that matched the convenience of its shopping experience. Previously facing challenges with the reliability of local courier services, Skroutz took control of its deliveries in January 2020, with the launch of its own delivery service, Skroutz Last Mile.

Reaching the end of the road with the previous platform

Skroutz Last Mile initially launched on a third-party routing platform, which handled both the routing simulation and the driver app. However, as Skroutz Last Mile scaled up and took on more deliveries, it began to experience limitations.

"The biggest problem we had was that our routing simulations would take too long, which created bottlenecks, leading to delays," says Agamemnon Papazoglou, Director of Strategy, Skroutz Last Mile. "We had a lot of sleepless nights, manually preparing the routes for the next day's deliveries. With 600 people turning up to work each morning, it costs a lot of money if your routes aren’t ready. The stakes are quite high."

Navigating the way to Google Maps Platform

As Skroutz expanded its delivery operations, it even considered building its own routing engine. But then the company saw the range of solutions available with Google Maps Platform.

"From the beginning, we had a good feeling about Google Maps Platform as a suite of tools that we could plug into our various flows," says Alex Papaspiridis, Head of Product, Skroutz Last Mile. "From the address validation and geocoding to Cloud Fleet Routing and Last Mile Fleet Solution, we really liked the flexibility it offered."

Skroutz was immediately impressed with the collaborative and transparent nature of the relationship with the Google Maps Platform team, as they worked closely together to implement the solution at the end of 2022.

With Cloud Fleet Routing and Last Mile Fleet Solution at the heart of the implementation, Skroutz started its first test routes at the start of 2023. The team was impressed with how Cloud Fleet Routing allowed it to plan its delivery routes efficiently and at scale, while Last Mile Fleet Solution enabled it to monitor its drivers' routes and quickly resolve issues as they arose.

Sleeping more easily with Cloud Fleet Routing

"Cloud Fleet Routing is extremely versatile," explains Papazoglou. "You have full control over details like how many drivers you are using, how many tasks, and variable driving speeds, all of which were challenging with the previous system. We can account for pretty much all the constraints and optimize for our key metrics."

Sleepless nights are now a thing of the past, with Papazoglou and his team able to use Cloud Fleet Routing to plan large clusters of orders in parallel, rather than having to plan smaller batches one at a time.

This saves Skroutz hours of processing time. Cloud Fleet Routing allows the company to plan routes for 50 drivers and 1,500 orders in half an hour, as opposed to 40 minutes for just five drivers and 200 orders with the previous solution. It also results in more efficient routes, with drivers now successfully completing 52 tasks per day, up from 47 per day using the old platform.

"Each night we look at what resources we have available, what sort of packages we have to deliver, their size, how much they weigh, when they need to arrive, and so on," explains Papazoglou. "And we look at factors like the driver's availability and the capacity of their vehicle. Then we put all those variables in, and it gives us back the routes. The whole thing is automated."

Integrating workflows with Last Mile Fleet Solution

With Last Mile Fleet Solution, Skroutz's drivers now enjoy a more convenient experience while running deliveries. Previously, drivers had to switch between the routing app for driving and the Skroutz app for tasks, such as checking in, picking up shifts, and managing their payroll. Now, with the Last Mile Fleet Solution Navigation SDK, drivers no longer need to switch between apps.

This has proved particularly important for Skroutz's push to offer more out-of-home deliveries. Drivers were previously required to switch from the routing app to Skroutz's smart-locker app to open the locker and insert the packages. Now they can remain in the Skroutz app, powered by Google Maps Platform, to complete the smart-locker delivery.

"The whole experience used to be very cumbersome," says Papazoglou. "So creating a set of tools that is customized to our operational workflow is really important. With Last Mile Fleet Solution we can do that very easily."

With the new workflow, drivers' efficiency has already improved, with the average time spent in the warehouse down from 41 minutes to 35 minutes.

Keeping promises thanks to rich, real-time data

With delivery loads fluctuating greatly from day to day and season to season, setting and meeting delivery targets used to be challenging. A lack of precise visibility into drivers' progress made it hard for Skroutz to accurately predict when deliveries would occur.

"Now we can configure things more granularly, which makes our predictions better," says Papazoglou. "With the Last Mile Fleet Solution Fleet Engine APIs, we also have a richer information flow regarding real-time locations for our entire fleet, real-time traffic data, and ETA predictions for every package. All this information allows us to build tools to know if our driver is on schedule, to empower our people to resolve problems more quickly, and to tell customers when to expect their package. We are now able to meet our delivery promise with 93-94% of our daily deliveries, as opposed to 85% previously, because Last Mile Fleet Solution enables us to be agile and robust."

The freedom to build for the future

Skroutz is now working to see if it can further improve efficiencies by using the Distance Matrix API to gain insights into optimal travel times to plan driver shifts more effectively. The company is also using Google Maps Platform to provide more information to the consumer, such as advice on how to choose the most appropriate smart-locker location.

For Papazoglou, these developments have been made possible by the confidence, freedom, and control Google Maps Platform affords the Skroutz team to build new solutions.

"Before Google Maps Platform, we were in a world of anxiety," says Papazoglou. "Worrying whether our system could scale up. Worrying about reliability. That's gone now. Google Maps Platform has freed us from constraints and given us confidence to create a better product and better service. It's made a huge improvement to our work."