On demand delivery can be described as anything faster than same day. Outside of food and drinks, and depending on the platform and location of the order, on demand deliveries are typically made within three hours.

This article covers what on demand delivery involves, why you should offer it to your customers, and what you need to do get set up. It also discusses the major on demand carriers available.

Standard delivery is two or more business days, express delivery is usually next day, and same day is usually within eight hours. By definition, on demand delivery is anything faster than same day. For food and drinks, this is sometimes within an hour, but for most other products it's usually within three hours.

To make this work, on demand delivery doesn’t go through the same collection and bulk sorting process as standard and express delivery services. While some more traditional carriers also now offer on demand services, the most well known on demand carriers crowd source drivers for deliveries.

Besides catering to customers' desire for ultra-fast delivery, on-demand delivery is also affordable, thanks to low overheads. It’s also transparent, allowing you and your customers to see exactly when an order is picked up and on its way, so they can be waiting at the door when it is delivered.

If you're thinking about offering on demand delivery, here are the things you need to do to get set up with on demand on Shippit.

The first step is to pick a platform to partner with. The easiest way to do this is to choose a Shippit integrated carrier and take advantage of our negotiated rates. However, if you already have an existing agreement with an on demand provider, you can integrate your own account with Shippit.

Consider how you want to integrate on demand delivery into your online checkout. You might need to change or introduce internal processes on the fulfilment side to allow this. If you use Shopify and Uber, you can turn on scheduled deliveries. For more information about scheduled deliveries, see the Shopify integration article.

Plan how to communicate your new on demand delivery option with your customers. Make sure your messaging on this is clear: depending on the size and location of your delivery partner's network, as well as your own business, your delivery area might be limited. If you have a national network of brick-and-mortar stores and can ship from store, you can probably offer on demand delivery in metro areas across the country. If you’re online-only, you might be restricted to the city where your warehouse is based.

This section contains an overview of the major on demand carriers. For more information about the carriers that Shippit supports, see the Carrier information collection, or get in touch with your Shippit account manager.

Uber Direct enables merchants to offer local delivery for orders placed on their own sales channels using Uber’s global network of delivery people.

Shippit’s on demand deliveries with Uber are made directly from your store to your customer, within a 20 kilometre radius.

Now accepting goods up to:

To learn more about Uber Direct, see our Get to know Uber article.

DoorDash reaches over 85% of Australia’s population through its driver network offering retailers an instant-delivery solution for consumers.

Shippit gives you access to both same day & on demand delivery options catering for a vast range of freight, including:

Take advantage of Shippit's partner rates to get fast access to DoorDash delivery. To learn more about DoorDash, see our Get to know Doordash article.

Partnering with Shippit, Sherpa helps businesses provide a quick last-mile delivery service to our customers and is ideal for those clients wanting to offer fast delivery within a matter of hours.

The service levels are:

Take advantage of Shippit's partner rates to get fast access to Sherpa delivery. For more information about Sherpa, see our Get to know Sherpa article.

Australia Post OnDemand allows you to have parcels delivered by the end of the day, after hours, or on Saturdays.

The service levels are:

Connect your Australia Post account through Shippit. For more information about Australia Post On Demand, see our Get to know Australia Post On demand article.

You can also integrate Australia Post OnDemand using the Shippit APIs, however there are some important differences to take note of. For more information about integrating Australia Post OnDemand with the Shippit APIs, see the Developer guide in the Shippit Developer centre.