The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a rapid change in how local companies operate, because lockdown has forced business owners to think of new ways to reach customers. One of the major shifts has been retailers handling their own deliveries; taking online orders directly to people’s doors.

We’ve seen this change first-hand, with many more independent businesses needing Circuit’s help for better delivery management and route planning. And it seems like we’re not the only ones to notice this trend, because Shopify just launched their own route optimization app, Shopify Local Delivery.

Competition keeps us on our toes, and that’s definitely a good thing. In this guide, we’ll be comparing and contrasting the Shopify Local Delivery App with our own offering, Circuit. We’ll cover:

If you need the ability to rapidly scale up delivery services, or if you need a simple solution for managing deliveries and optimizing routes, both Circuit and Shopify Local Delivery are options worth considering. This guide is designed to help you decide which solution makes the most sense for you.

Introducing the Shopify Local Delivery App

The Shopify Local Delivery App is designed to help Shopify store owners manage delivery lists, optimize the order of deliveries, and provide their customers with updated status reports about parcel deliveries.

On the face of it, many of these benefits seem to match Circuit’s. However, there are plenty of important differences between the two tools that we’ll investigate in this guide.

The Benefits and Limitations of the Shopify Local Delivery App

Three Unique Benefits of the Shopify Local Delivery App:

If you’d like more information about the nuts-and-bolts of how the Shopify Local Delivery App works, you can find details on the Shopify help center or the Shopify app store.

Five Limitations of Shopify Local Delivery:

Shopify has also warned their Shopify Plus members (enterprise-level users) that adding Shopify Local Delivery to their checkout can cause problems with their customized checkout templates.

How Circuit Compares to the Shopify Local Delivery App

The Shopify Local Delivery App is a really useful option for small Shopify merchants with one delivery driver, provided none of the above limitations get in the way. The route optimization is simple and solid, and the delivery notifications keep recipients in the loop about the general status of their order.

In contrast, Circuit is better for businesses that employ more than one driver for running deliveries, and/or with a larger inventory of items that need to be delivered daily. And if you also have specific delivery requirements (e.g. a parcel needs to be delivered before 12pm), Circuit is probably a better fit.

Circuit’s delivery management app might suit you better in these particular cases, because:

So, generally, if you have two or more delivery drivers, complex delivery requirements, and the potential for more than 100 deliveries per day, Circuit is relevant for you. At the same time, other factors make the Circuit app a superior option for any retailer — regardless of the complexity of their deliveries:

At the time of writing, none of these three features are available on the Shopify Local Delivery App.

If you offer local delivery services and want a simple, cost-effective way to optimize routes, track deliveries, and update recipients, sign up for a free trial of Circuitsign up for a free trial of Circuit.

How Small Businesses Have Used Circuit to Scale Local Delivery OperationSmall Businesses Have Used Circuit to Scale Local Delivery OperationSmall Businesses Have Used Circuit to Scale Local Delivery Operations

At the initial peak of COVID-19 — and during the resulting lockdowns — we saw many local organizations signing up for Circuit in order to scale their delivery services. Although they are relatively small organizations, they need more functionality than what Shopify Local Delivery can offer.

Coco Market:

Pilar Ordonez and Victoria Checchi, partners at Argentinian health food company, Coco Market, wanted to speed up their delivery management and get better at route planning — so they tried Circuit for Teams. The app saved them more than 5 hours per week in morning planning, and allowed Coco Market’s drivers to complete their daily route 3 hours faster than before.

Circuit’s route monitoring meant Pilar could track her delivery trucks and update customers on delivery times without interrupting the drivers on their route. And as Coco Market’s eCommerce website sales tripled during the COVID-19 lockdowns, they were able to meet the increased demand without trouble.

The Core Juicery:

On the day that The Core Juicery switched from serving fresh juice in their cafe to delivering fruit and vegetable boxes, owner Kris got 300 orders for that week. Soon enough, they went from zero deliveries to 400 weekly deliveries. Kris uses Circuit to schedule deliveries for paying customers as well as for donation recipients such as hospital workers and at-risk residents.

Despite having multiple employees and volunteer drivers delivering various types of products to different customers, Circuit ensures that Kris’s morning planning only takes 15-20 minutes.

Sanjhi Rasoi:

Sagar Dhaliwal has saved $3,500 in salary costs by using Circuit to optimize the food delivery service for his restaurant, Sanjhi Rasoi. He used Circuit’s route duration metrics to switch his drivers from daily salaries to pay-per-hour, and proof-of-delivery confirmation (delivery photos) has prevented lost packages — meaning replacement meal deliveries are now down to zero. Sanjhi Rasoi can now deliver 1,000 hot meals per day to customers, with Sagar and his team comfortably managing the demand.

Further Examples:

And recently, we’ve also seen Woodbridge Emergency Response Group in the UK scaling from 600 food and medicine deliveries per week to 1,300, using route monitoring to track volunteer drivers and proof-of-delivery to confirm who receives life-saving medication.

Another example is The Chocolate Lab, based in California, who can now manage multiple delivery drivers doing 150 deliveries in a single day.

Summary: Shopify Local Delivery vs Circuit for Retail Deliveries

The Shopify Local Delivery App is a great tool for Shopify merchants who only have a few deliveries to make per day or per week — using one driver. If your ambition is to get an optimized list for better route planning, this mobile app is simple, quick, and easy to launch from your existing Shopify store.

However, even if you run a small operation like this, driver tracking, proof-of-delivery, and note sharing might be really useful. With Circuit, you get these features included. And for businesses who need more robust delivery management for complex inventories and multiple drivers, as well as route optimization for more stops, real-time updates, and route monitoring — Circuit is the solution that makes sense.

If you offer local delivery services and want a simple, cost-effective way to optimize routes, track deliveries, and update recipients, sign up for a free trial of Circuitsign up for a free trial of Circuit.