Delivery Management Platform Routific Sees 2.4X Growth Driven by Pandemic Demand Surges
Routific, the route planning and delivery management platform for small businesses, today announced growth of 2.4X in 2020. Driven by changing consumer habits amid the pandemic, Routific empowers small businesses to deliver more goods with fewer vehicles in less time, helping them stay afloat as big box stores increasingly consume market share. The platform has seen growth across a number of SMB home delivery businesses, including those that deliver food, from groceries to farm organics and beverages ranging from fresh pressed juices to craft beer.
Routific’s software is used globally and has extensive reach, working with local businesses across 5,774 cities and 169 countries. In an effort to help those in need, Routific has also offered its software completely free to more than 450 nonprofits around the world, including the Lebron James’ Family Foundation, Seattle Children’s Hospital and the United Way, who have put themselves on the frontlines delivering essential goods like food, medicine and masks to high-risk populations during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In recent months, food retailers have been forced to adapt to delivery models as millions of households shifted to buying groceries online, a trend experts expect to continue even after the pandemic has ended. Online grocery is set to double its market share by 2025 and post-pandemic e-grocery sales are expected to climb from $35 billion to more than $250 billion, according to a recent study.
“Now more than ever our customers need to run as optimally and efficiently as possible,” said Suzanne Ma, Co-Founder of Routific. “Routific helps businesses save up to 40 percent on operating costs, while simultaneously achieving environmental impacts by way of reduced emissions and fewer cars on the road. We’re grateful for the opportunity to assist local businesses as they work to not only survive but thrive amid the pandemic.”
Routific is the only route optimization and delivery management platform that has built an official integration with Shopify to reach more small businesses, making it easier for them to run successful online shops and profitable home delivery services. Shopify, which was recently coined “Anti-Amazon,” controls almost 20 percent of the global e-commerce market share. Overall e-commerce growth is up as well, from 15 percent of retail spending in 2019 to 21 percent of spending in 2020.
Adding to its momentum, Routific partnered with DoorDash in 2020 for a flagship social impact program, Project DASH, which uses the DoorDash Drive logistics platform to tackle challenges like hunger and food waste. Project DASH was powering 600 deliveries a week and turned to Routific to scale to more than 10,000 weekly deliveries when the pandemic hit.
Routific has also partnered with FoodX, a grocery e-commerce software solution for large and small international retailers, including Walmart Canada and Carrefour. Routific has integrated its routing technology into the FoodX platform, which is intended to be an alternative to outsourcing e-commerce and home delivery to third parties such as Instacart, which take a larger share of business profits.
“Routific’s growth is a reflection of the impact they’re having on small businesses all around the world,” said Scott Lake, Hello Ventures CEO, Shopify Co-Founder and Routific investor. “This is a great example of how technology can empower small businesses and give them a chance to thrive in the competitive world of e-commerce.”