How to Plan Delivery Zones and Scale as You Grow

Want to make your deliveries more efficient in just a couple of hours? Here’s the power trick any small delivery business can implement today, without spending a cent: Create delivery zones. They will help you:

• Serve customers faster and more efficiently.
• Manage your drivers and their workloads
• Improve your delivery times
• Optimize your routes.

But what are delivery zones, and how do you create and manage them? In this guide we’ll talk about how and why delivery zones matter, how to create them, and what challenges to look out for. We’ll also look at how delivery management software can make things easier.

💡 Just need a quick solution? Routific can create optimized delivery zones and routes for you — no spreadsheets, no headaches. Try it free for 7 days.

What are delivery zones, and why do they matter?

Delivery zones are designated geographical areas for deliveries (think geofencing). They break down larger regional delivery areas into smaller segments for simpler and more efficient deliveries. 

Imagine you’re a grocery delivery business servicing Vancouver. You may have 3-4 delivery zones throughout the city based on:

• Where your customers live
• Customer demographics and demands
• Local traffic patterns
• Proximity to your headquarters 
• Other factors that are unique to your business

Delivery zones matter because they help businesses get deliveries to customers more quickly and efficiently using optimized routes. 

Rather than having to optimize driver routes and delivery times for a large area (like all of Vancouver), you can focus on smaller, more manageable pockets. Maybe you have a delivery zone in East Vancouver and another in Kitsilano. Each zone can have optimized routes, so deliveries land on customer doorsteps faster and more efficiently — which translates to a positive customer experience.

Zones can also help you meet customer demands. 

For example, you may have:

• Delivery zones for customers in a large city that demand faster service. 
• Separate zones for customers in suburban areas where speed may not be the primary concern.

Creating zones based on demographic data such as this can help ensure you’re meeting customer needs and creating a positive experience.

There’s no question that delivery zones offer many advantages, but how do you tackle the task of creating and managing them? 

How to plan delivery zones

The way you approach delivery zones will largely depend on the size of your business. A smaller operation will have different concerns than a larger, more complex operation.

For smaller operations (3-5 vehicles)

If you run a smaller operation with just a handful of vehicles, creating delivery zones is a straightforward process.

Start by analyzing your delivery data and service area. Map out the region, making note of your business location, your customer locations, and areas of high demand.

Google’s My Maps is a good free mapping service to use — you can upload a spreadsheet with all your customer address data.

Once you have a clear visual of your delivery area, consider:

• Customer density. Which areas have higher numbers of customers? 
• Proximity. How can you minimize unnecessary mileage for your drivers?
• Geographical factors. Can you divide your service area based on city districts, neighborhoods, or zip codes? Are there heavily trafficked areas or natural boundaries that might impact deliveries?
• Load balancing. How can you strategically place your zones to ensure drivers have similar workloads?
• Zero emission zones. Does your city restrict some vehicle types in some areas? 

Take all of these factors into account when setting your zone boundaries. The goal is to segment your service area into manageable clusters that your fleet can easily handle. 

Zip codes are a good place to start, but they sometimes create inefficient delivery zones, especially when addresses are near zone borders. Be flexible in your zone planning.

For bigger operations (15+ vehicles)

If you run a larger operation with over a dozen delivery vehicles, you may need to take a different approach. Having more vehicles in your fleet means that you’ll need a more sophisticated strategy to ensure timely deliveries and efficient operations.

Along with the points in the previous section, you may also want to consider:

• Implementing dynamic zones that adjust in real-time based on traffic, detours, demand, and driver availability.
• Creating clusters of delivery points to simplify route planning across larger zones.
• Dividing your fleet into groups based on vehicle capacity and type and delivery needs.

Unlike a smaller operation, which may only have a few zones, larger operations may have several that need to be carefully managed. Make sure you have processes in place to track and analyze each zone’s performance and make changes as needed to maintain efficiency and delivery times.

Technology can help automate this process by tracking the performance of your drivers in each zone. If you see an uptick in late or missed deliveries, you may need to change how you plan delivery routes or remap your delivery zones to get your operations back on track.

Taking the right approach to creating your zones is important, but this is just one piece of the puzzle. When mapping out your delivery services, you’ll need to consider some of the challenges you may face in achieving your goal of creating a positive customer experience.

The challenges of creating food delivery zones

Creating delivery zones can improve efficiency and create a better customer experience, but there are always challenges. You may face some of these issues:

1. Driver turnover & training

One of the great benefits of delivery zones is driver familiarity. The more experience drivers have with their zones and their routes, the better they know traffic patterns, parking locations, short cuts, and so on. In fact, research shows that drivers can drive 10% faster on roads they have driven on more than five times. Driver familiarity also means fewer errors.

When you lose a driver, you lose all this experience — and the cost savings that come with it. 

If possible, you can try to reduce the impact of driver turnover by:

• Asking a departing driver to write down tips for handling their zone, or record a video for the next driver. 
• Getting a new driver to ride along with the old driver on their route.
• Keeping customer information up to date, including driver notes like how to access the property. This is easier if you have a delivery management system that includes a mobile app for drivers. 

2. Seasonal or daily demand fluctuations

Depending on your business, you have predictable busy and quiet periods. For example, food delivery businesses often have predictable busy periods like lunchtimes and holiday. Zones that work well during normal periods may become inefficient during peak times

3. Urban vs suburban zone balance

Dense urban areas have different challenges than suburban areas. In urban areas you have to deal with scarce parking, traffic, and lots of stops close together. In rural or suburban areas, you may have long distances between stops. As a result, a zone that looks good in theory may not work in practice. 

Keep in mind that some zones will cover a much larger area than others.

4. Maintaining product freshness

Whether you’re delivering groceries or prepared foods, your top priority will be to maintain quality and freshness. 

Delivery zones can help minimize the distance from the store to the customer’s door, but they don’t solve the problem automatically. 

What if there’s an unexpected spike in demand? Your delivery drivers may be overburdened and struggle to make more deliveries in less time, despite having sensible delivery zones.

What if one of your drivers can’t make it to work? If your fleet is short a driver or two, the rest of your team will have to shoulder the burden. Delivery time windows may suffer as a result.

Maintaining freshness and quality is crucial, but this goal can be hard to achieve through the creation of delivery zones alone — especially if you’re relying on manual route planning. Proper delivery management will be key.

5. Inefficient delivery routes

Inefficient routes make it more difficult to get deliveries to customers on time, even when your service area is segmented into smaller delivery zones. 

When freshness and quality are your top priorities, you can’t risk creating a poor customer experience because your routes are all over the place.

Finding the most efficient routes can be challenging if you’re still using Excel spreadsheets. 

But here’s the good news:  Many of these challenges can be solved with route planning software.

How route optimization software can help you overcome delivery zone challenges

When delivery zones are combined with routing software, that’s where the magic happens. Solutions like Routific streamline the route planning process, making it easy to optimize routes, improve delivery time, and eliminate time-consuming manual processes. 

In fact, route optimization has the potential to reduce mileage and driving time by 5-15%.

Smart algorithms take things like real-time traffic and detours into account to keep your deliveries moving and operational costs under control.

You can even manage temperature-sensitive deliveries to ensure your drivers use the fastest route to the customer’s door.

Greenhouse Juice, for example, uses Routific to create efficient delivery routes that ensure customers get their fresh juices at warp speed. With the help of our optimization software, Greenhouse Juice’s drivers enjoy short, efficient routes without overlapping or circling back. Customers enjoy the freshest products. With just one solution, this delivery business solves both of the top challenges of food delivery zones — all while optimizing fuel consumption and reducing travel time for their drivers.

Bowlz takes a similar approach. They deliver lunches via bikes. To maintain freshness and speedy deliveries, they leverage Routific to:

• Ensure delivery time windows for each order are factored into each route plan.
• Adjust routes by dragging and dropping multiple stops between riders.
• Optimize routes based on each rider’s average speed.
• Send customers notifications and proof of delivery when their orders arrive.

On average, Bowlz prepares and delivers 300 meals per day. There’s no room for error when this many deliveries are on the line. Route optimization and smart delivery zones ensure these couriers deliver more than just lunches, but customer satisfaction as well.

These are just two real-world examples of how delivery zones and route planning software can optimize delivery schedules and improve operational efficiency. 

To make the most of route optimization software and delivery zones — whether you’re in food delivery, e-commerce, or last-mile delivery —  make sure that you’re using a solution that will:

• Create routes based on multiple factors (not just speed), such as historical traffic patterns and driver preferences.
• Adjust routes based on real-time weather and traffic conditions.
• Easily optimize routes for multiple stops, drop-off locations, and depots to minimize travel distance.
• Allow you to adjust routes if last-minute orders or cancellations come through.
• Make it easy to set time windows for deliveries, especially when delivering fresh foods.
• Easily integrate into your tech stack and use familiar navigation apps like Google Maps to make your drivers’ lives easier.

How to scale and manage delivery zones as you grow

If you’re like most business owners, growth is your goal. Maybe you want to expand your delivery operations into new areas. Maybe you just want to boost demand in your small service area by hiring more drivers and expanding your fleet along the way.

Whatever growth looks like to you, you need to find a way to scale and manage your delivery zones as you inch closer to your goal. 

Here’s how.

Evaluate your zones regularly

As a general rule of thumb, you should evaluate your zones regularly to see if they’re working for you. 

• Are deliveries arriving on time?
• Are customers happy with the quality of your deliveries?
• Are your zones cost-effective? 

Delivery zone management is an ongoing process. Make sure you’re tracking your key metrics regularly, and optimizing as needed to maintain efficiency and a positive experience.

Pay attention to zones that are frequently seeing delayed or missed deliveries. If possible, restructure your zones in these areas to ease workloads and improve delivery times.

As you grow, you can create more zones and continue to evaluate their efficiency to keep your delivery business running like a well-oiled machine.

Use data and feedback to continually improve

Data can give you valuable insights you can use to improve your delivery process. For example, if there’s higher demand in one zone, you can assign more drivers to that area to keep things speedy and efficient.

Collecting feedback from customers can also help you improve the delivery experience. Are customers complaining about delays and quality? Maybe you need to adjust your zone boundaries or hire more drivers to ensure effective delivery to customers.

If your goal is to scale a zone, make sure your operations are efficient before you start planning an expansion.

Be strategic about where you expand

Expanding to new areas can help you reach new customers, but before you take the dive, ensure there’s enough demand.

• Do you consistently get inquiries from customers outside of your delivery area?
• Are your competitors already operating in the areas you’re considering expanding into? If so, is that market saturated?

A little market research can go a long way in helping you make an informed decision.

Don’t forget to consider whether you have the capacity to move into a new delivery area or if you’ll need to expand your fleet and hire new delivery teams.

Invest in technology that will scale with you

As your business grows, your delivery zones and route planning will become more complicated. To keep things running smoothly, you need a delivery route planner that can scale with you.

Scalable solutions eliminate the need to invest in new hardware or software as your operations expand. Cloud-based solutions like Routific offer this advantage. You can scale up and down as needed, all while ensuring that your drivers use the best route for each zone. 

The takeaway

Delivery zones can transform your operations, helping you get deliveries to customers faster without overworking your drivers. 

But to maximize their benefits and create a positive customer experience, you need a scalable route optimization solution to ensure your drivers are taking the most efficient routes within each zone. Scalable solutions like Routific will grow with you, allowing you to continually optimize your zones as you expand.