Tender: luxury home delivery
Why has Tender been created?
During the first lockdown, traditional retail buying came to a complete standstill and e-commerce was, and still is, for many retailers a big question mark. What’s more, statistically, 50% of e-commerce users, even the most hardened, ditch their “cart” and don’t confirm their purchases due to the delivery time which, on average, takes around three working days. For this reason, I and my business partner, Filippo Maria Capitanio – who is already a partner with Giovani Gioiellieri d’Italia, LuxMadeIn and DOP – strove to find alternative formulas and we began by imagining how the in-store and on-line buying experience might evolve, starting from home delivery. By uniting these logics, we formulated a different service, implementing an authentic change of criterion and developing in-house technology and our own business model.
What exactly is the Tender “criterion”?
It is essentially based on three cornerstones. First of all, a premium service which guarantees home delivery 7 days a week, from 10 am to 10 pm, on appointment, within an hour of purchase confirmation, either on the same day or when most suitable. Furthermore, deliveries are made by our Personal Style Riders, highly qualified staff who will take the Brand Experience right to the client’s door. What does that mean? Our riders are specially trained. They are interested in the sector, they know the product they are delivering, they can speak one or more foreign languages and are bona fide “transporters” of the values of a certain brand. In short, not ordinary deliverymen or women. Quite the contrary. We have also paid great attention to the security aspect: at Tender, we take care to protect the style riders; at the moment, they have an Asso Delivery, UGL collective agreement contract but, from March, they will be employed regularly. In fact, by that date, we will be classified as a delivery service by all effects. As for safety, we are implementing a contactless service, offering individual protection devices and putting into play every possible caution for the final customer. Through the app and link that is sent at delivery onset, the final customers know exactly who will be knocking on their door since they will be sent the riders’ photo and telephone number so that they can contact and live-track them on the map. The third and last cornerstone is sustainability. All our vehicles are zero-emission. We have an intermodal approach and use a fleet of our own electric vehicles as well as public transport and all existing sharing services.
How useful were the Giovani Gioiellieri d’Italia, LuxMadeIn and DOP experiences in establishing this start-up?
With Giovani Gioiellieri d’Italia, LuxMadeIn and DOP - in the first two cases, working in close contact with over 450 companies, and with DOP, since we are founders of the brand ourselves - we understood all the subtleties needed to develop something that could totally eliminate any incoherencies in the traditional concept of brand experience. Let me explain further. When you go into a physical or virtual boutique, no matter how welcoming or luxurious it is, or how well the staff are able to transmit know-how and awareness, once you go out of the store, the experience has been interrupted. A messenger comes, picks up the product without any particular care, and delivers it to the final customer, maybe in a package that has become stained or dirty in the meantime. Unfortunately, this spoils the “glossy” part that the company would like to transmit. Thanks to our style riders, however, we are able to deliver quickly and with Wow, as our slogan proclaims. And that’s not all. The riders wait for up to 15 minutes so that, after trying on the dress or shoes and deciding that the item is not right, the customer can send it back immediately and the product will be sanitized. In short, take it or leave it, with no time wasted for either the customer or the retailer, who will not need to send another messenger to pick up the return parcel and will have the product newly available. And, what’s more, we also offer a wardrobe service by taking a larger and smaller size of the clothes and shoes ordered, thus making the product sale more certain.
How does it actually work?
We offer a BtoB, store to store, warehouse to store, warehouse or store to final customer service and, if the goods are returned, a service from the final customer to the original starting point. Tender is not a BtoC app. This should be specified. An additional sector that we are developing very well is for and with celebrities: these are people that move a high volume of goods and, in general, it is the store manager that deals directly with a home or on-set delivery. Thanks to Tender, every brand can now deliver clothes and jewelry in safety. At the moment we are operative in Rome with a delivery service within the city ring-road area and, by March, we will have developed our activity in Milan and Florence. By the end of 2021, we should also be up and running in the main metropolitan areas, starting from Turin and Bologna.
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Lorenza Scalisi, Editor VO+
