SEKO Logistics has expanded its US nationwide 'white glove' delivery service for heavyweight and bulky business-to-consumer e-commerce products to final assembly.
It announced the move at this week’s Home Delivery World expo in Atlanta. “Adding a full assembly option, which includes installation, setup, syncing smart devices and removing packaging, to its broad range of home delivery services – basic, standard, threshold, room of choice, and white glove completes the loop of SEKO’s e-commerce home delivery offering for high value and over-sized products.
In addition, SEKO also appeals to a growing number of customers with the suite of technology solutions that continues to set SEKO apart from its competitors,” the company underlined.
With a network of over 60 locations across the US, it completed nearly one million white glove home deliveries last year and expects this figure to double by 2020, as consumers continue to order bulky items online and where there is an increasing preference for in-home assembly services.
“SEKO has also been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the growing reluctance of express and mail carriers to take on shipments such as fitness equipment, furniture, home appliances, big screen televisions and bicycles. In some cases, shippers have introduced pricing structures, size limits and surcharges for heavier items to deter such e-commerce customers,” it noted.
The company claimed that “the greater flexibility “of its “asset appropriate transportation and logistics solutions, alongside their award-winning software solutions,” were now giving it “a significant competitive advantage in the final mile home delivery market.”
At the end of 2017, SEKO also launched a combined airfreight and final mile service for bulky goods to destinations across the US.
Commenting on the company's' growing home delivery service expertise, James Gagne, president and CEO, said that “a combination of SEKO’s network, service capability, customer experience, technology and great timing means our sponsorship of Home Delivery World 2018 promises to open up significant new business opportunities with the more than 1,500 retailers attending ‘the event’ for retail logistics.”
He continued: “We have been successfully developing our Home Delivery services for several years, so the decision to launch a full assembly solution is a natural progression for us – and it could not be happening at a more opportune time.
The interest from retailers, brands and consumers in value-added home delivery services has never been greater and while the threshold for such deliveries has traditionally been around 150lbs, this is now moving down further to around 100lbs, opening up even more opportunities. We’re responding to this trend.”
Supported by a 24/7 Customer Service Center to ensure deliveries are monitored around-the-clock, SEKO said its entire solution is based on delivering exceptional customer experience at the point of delivery, alongside full visibility and cost efficiency.
For retailers, the MySEKO portal provides real-time visibility from vendor sourcing to final delivery and offers “a customizable, web-based transportation dashboard” that also provides the ability to gain a complete view of their account and activities, book shipments online, track and trace, print bills of lading and shipping labels, and run customized management reports.
Gagne concluded: “What we offer fits perfectly with the distribution infrastructure of so many US retailers, which still prefer to operate from one central warehouse and find it more advantageous to use airfreight, rather than set up regional distribution centers to achieve the necessary speed of delivery. We’re excited about the conversations we’re going to be having with retailers at Home Delivery World 2018.”
