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delivery too slow? Online service aims to get your order to your doorstep in 30 minutes By: Dana Knight September 12, 2005, The Indianapolis Star Maybe you'd like a pair of silk Victoria's Secret pajamas delivered with that pizza. Or a pet dish from PetSmart to go with your Chinese order -- so you can share with Rover. Whatever you want, you got it. In Indianapolis, what can be delivered to your doorstep in 30 minutes is becoming as far reaching as cyberspace itself. A new online business called the 30MinuteMALL.com is testing its concept in Indianapolis, catering to time-pressed consumers and their growing desire for convenience. The 30MinuteMALL is a high-tech melding of online ordering, concierge service and fast delivery -- from just about every retailer in Indianapolis -- all under one cyber-mall roof. "We are the final mile of the Internet," said Steffen J. Cherry, a founder of the company and executive vice president of business development who developed the 30MinuteMALL in Canada. "You don't just send your order off somewhere into space; you send it to us, and we're there at your doorstep." This is how it works: Consumers go online to www.30 MinuteMALL.com to access local retailers' and restaurants' Web sites. They enter their ZIP codes (the mall serves Indianapolis and most surrounding counties), and with the click of a button, they submit their orders to the mall. A message is immediately sent to a CyberValet, a fancy name for the delivery person independently contracted by the mall. Within five minutes, the valet calls to confirm the order. Within 30 minutes, usually, you've got whatever it is you want. It can be a pair of black shoes from Nordstrom or a load of dry wood from Lowe's. It can be a big-screen TV from HH Gregg or a half-gallon of milk from Marsh. It can be just about anything that's sold in the Indianapolis area. Which leads to the obvious question: How can just about anything be delivered in 30 minutes? It can't, and the company's founders are the first to admit the 30MinuteMALL could have just as easily been called the 60MinuteMALL. Some variables are out of their control, such as slow service at the retailer or traffic jams. "The 30 minutes, it's about perception," said Robert J. Quilty, founder and chief operating officer. "We've found once that CyberValet makes the initial call telling the customer they have the order and are on the way, the clock stops." Even in its ads, the tagline is, "Delivered usually in 30 minutes." But the 30-minute mantra is really an internal agenda reminding the CyberValets "you need to be thinking ASAP," Quilty said. There is no discount or free gift for customers if the order doesn't come in 30 minutes. But there often is a call from the CyberValet letting you know if he's running a little late. This personalized, ultra-convenient service comes with a price. Delivery charges range from $3.95 to $9.95. Sometimes the order itself doesn't cost as much as the fee to deliver. For example, if a Quarter Pounder value meal from McDonald's sounds good, go for it. But that $4 meal may end up costing you $12. "Believe me, people are willing to pay this for convenience," Cherry said. Craving convenience Kim Herrle is one of them. The owner of Nail Impressions & Hair Designs in Whiteland never gets to leave the shop for lunch. Few restaurants in town deliver, and Herrle said she gets tired of the same old lunch. With 30MinuteMALL, Herrle orders from Chili's, Panera Bread, Taco Bell and the Bay Window in Greenwood. She and her employees pay a $7.95 delivery fee. "Doesn't bother me at all," she said. "If I leave and close the shop, I can miss out on $25 to $40 an hour. Do I lose money paying $8 for delivery? No way." In this fast-paced world, time is a coveted luxury for most Americans. In a 24-hour day, the average person has about four hours of leisure time, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. During a week's time, consumers spend 5.7 hours purchasing goods and services. "Consumers are always thinking about convenience, and they are pressed for time," said Ray Burke, with Indiana University's Kelley School of Business in Bloomington. The proof is in the exploding online retail industry. E-commerce transactions grew 23.8 percent in 2004 to $141.1 billion, according to the National Retail Federation's State of Retailing Online, conducted by Forrester Research. By 2010, that number is expected to more than double to $316 billion. The 30MinuteMALL is planning to rake in its share. It will permeate Indianapolis and then move on to other locations. St. Louis; an Arizona site; and Naples, Fla., are on the short list. The founders of the business -- Quilty, Cherry, his father Richard Cherry and the elder Cherry's wife, Gail Nichols -- brought in a well-known name to invest and chair the venture. Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and the man who brought 30-minute delivery to the nation, was the inspiration for the business. "The 30MinuteMALL takes Tom's winning concept and expands it," Richard Cherry said. Instead of pizza, "(we) put hundreds of thousands of products just a mouse-click away for our customers." Steffen Cherry declined to reveal the startup cost for the business, saying it was a "rolling number." And one that's about to go higher. Within the next 60 to 90 days, the business will expand, opening two grocery warehouses -- one in Speedway and one to serve the Fishers and Carmel areas. It already has a warehouse off Brookville Road. These warehouses are small, about 3,000 square feet, and are not open to the public. They are filled with inventory for GroceryNOW.com and FantasticGourmetNOW.com, two subsidiaries of the 30MinuteMALL. Customers may buy groceries from those sites for home delivery. Testing the concept The mall almost sounds too good to be true, and some experts say it may be. "You've got to be very careful when you make promises to the
customer," said Patrick Duparcq, with the Kellogg School of Management
at Northwestern University in Chicago. "By the time you get to the
store, you pick up the stuff and get back -- to do that in 30 minutes,
that's quite an accomplishment." Duparcq said that in his research he found just two other businesses nationwide that do what the 30MinuteMALL is trying to do: Pinkdot.com in Los Angeles and Maxdelivery.com in New York. Each has focused on their home cities, and "that's probably why they're still alive," he said. Duparcq said that to survive, these types of businesses must focus. "If you offer too many things, it will be too complicated to pick it up from different stores," he said. "And you can't expand too quickly." The challenges the 30MinuteMALL faces are not insurmountable, but definitely real, he said. Steffen Cherry said the company is working out its glitches in Indianapolis before it expands the concept. "We came here to get knocked around and to make mistakes," he said. Indianapolis typifies U.S. cities, and he believes that if consumers buy into the concept here, they will everywhere else. If Stacie Neathery is an example, the business should succeed. "I love it," said the Indianapolis mother of two. She uses the service for dinner, because she often doesn't feel like cooking or going out. And the usual pizza just doesn't cut it. "Texas Roadhouse is one of our favorites," she said. "I just get online and order and in 30 or 40 minutes the food gets here." Forty minutes? But it's the 30MinuteMALL. "That's no big deal," she said. "It's worth it." |