We needed to understand who the key stakeholders of the platform would be going forward. These were broken down into four categories:
- Employees
- Consumers
- Retail Partners
- Courier and Logistics Partners
Case Study
Transforming the Last Mile Delivery Industry with PenguinPickUp
As PenguinPickUp grew their market share and evolved their business model, they realized that the existing platform couldn’t support their long-term growth and partners. We helped them reinvent themselves through technology consulting, cloud platform development, and managed support solutions.
About the Client
PenguinPickUp is a last-mile delivery solution that provides consumers, retailers, and courier companies with secure and convenient package pickup and drop-off locations across Canada.
Nationwide Coverage
PenguinPickUp continues to grow to provide nationwide coverage from Vancouver to Montreal and locations in between.
Over 5.5 Million Canadians live within 2km of a PenguinPickUp Centre.
Secure & Convenient
PenguinPickUp reduces the risk of package theft by providing secure drop-off locations for courier companies like FedEx, UPS, Purolator, and others, allowing customers in busy urban centers to hold their packages until they are ready to retrieve them.
Retail-Agnostic
In addition to direct integration with key retailers like Walmart, Ikea, and Dollarama, PenguinPickUp is retail agnostic, allowing customers to conveniently ship packages from any company, even renowned platforms like Amazon, directly to PenguinPickUp stores.
Courier Partners
Direct integration with Class-A courier and logistics companies like FedEx, UPS, Purolator, DHL, Canpar, and others allows undelivered packages to be brought to a secure location convenient to the customer.
Home Delivery
PenguinPickUp Subscribers can have their consolidated packages delivered to their home at a time that works for them if they cannot reach a store location.
Facing Business
Challenges
When PenguinPickUp started in 2014, the platform was built in 12 weeks as a minimally viable product (MVP), meant to test the concept in the market. As PenguinPickUp grew their market share and evolved their business model, they realized that the current platform could support their long-term growth and partners much longer.
-
Package Volume Increase
PenguinPickUp was a quick success, and they saw an increase of over 15x in the package volume they were processing daily.
-
Manual Processes
Many of the processes developed in the MVP were manual and needed to be scalable. Manual inventory processes, reconciliation, and courier integrations were time-consuming and took away from the guest experience.
-
No Business Intelligence Capabilities
As the platform and network of stores grew, so did their need for understanding their data. The MVP platform had minimal data reporting capabilities, and many reports required expert developers to build.
-
Existing Platform Difficult to Manage
The MVP platform was built semi-monolithic, designed to test the concept quickly. As their needs evolved, the original platform became difficult to manage, upgrade or integrate with new partners.
-
No Mobile Experience
The consumer platform lacked a mobile experience. Customers using the platform had to use desktop, or mobile-friendly versions of their platform, detracting from a great customer experience.
-
“When it was time for us to evolve and innovate, we went to our partners at TechBlocks to help us build version 2.0 of our platform. They took the time to come to our stores and learn how our existing platform was working. They truly learned our procedures by observing up close both the human and technological processes and were able to deliver a massive 67-page audit. The team’s creative problem-solving backed by enterprise service management solutions helped develop PenguinPickUp 2.0.”
Brad Baker Vice President Operations – PenguinPickUp
Why It Matters
PenguinPickUp delivers value to their partners and customers nationwide, helping reduce operational costs, lower carbon footprint, and increase successful first-attempt delivery for their retail and courier partners, reducing the risk of lost or stolen packages.
75
%
Reduce Last Mile Delivery Cost
63
%
Lower Carbon Footprint
2
KM
Over 5 Million people live within 2KM of a PenguinPickUp location
How PenguinPickUp Works
Direct Integration
PenguinPickUp directly integrates with large retailers, such as Walmart, Ikea, or Dollarama, to enhance the customer’s checkout experience. Shoppers on retailer websites with direct integration can choose their closest PenguinPickUp location as the delivery address instead of their home or office for same-day, next-day, or standard orders.
PenguinPickUp offers mid-mile pickup from their retail partners, allowing them to retrieve orders on demand for subscribers.
Product Returns
Customers can bring their orders back to any PenguinPickUp location for hassle-free return processing for their key retail partners, helping to improve operational efficiency and improve customer experience.
Pinch to zoom in/out
The Solution
Building a New Operational Platform
Integration Partners
Transforming the PenguinPickUp Experience
TechBlocks has been a Cloud First company since the idea of a public cloud computing platform was still an early concept from Microsoft & Amazon. The PenguinPickup 2.0 platform was built entirely on Microsoft Azure using serverless architecture.
Platform Cloud Architecture
Pinch to zoom in/out
Platform Technology
Communication Technology
Tell Us About Your Project
TechBlocks can help you build your next project in the cloud using serverless, on-demand technology that enables you to scale and optimize costs.