Delivery as soon as: large products by truck

The problem

Shipping is a parcel carrier working to a deadline. Delivery is a truck, a crew and an appointment, and its date depends on capacity, not transit time.

Major appliances and TVs over 50 inches can't ship by parcel, and online they had no real date. In February 2014, a refrigerator listing said "Delivery: Most areas," with the date behind another click. "Most areas" wasn't calculated. It was a manual setting that meant most warehouses should have the item, which often wasn't true. The scheduling system behind delivery couldn't handle web traffic, so hundreds of times a week a customer reached checkout and was told to try again later. I sized the cost at about $21 per error, six figures a year.

What I saw

A date is only instant if the hard decisions are made before the shopper asks.

Which location fulfills a refrigerator, and when a crew can deliver and install it, had to be settled ahead of time, for every product and every area.

What I built

• Large product presourcing: each large product follows its own path: a regional delivery warehouse, a local store's own delivery, or a transfer to the servicing location first. We chose the path ahead of time, so the earliest delivery date was known before anyone searched.
• A service calendar built for the web: I built the business case for a web-scale delivery and installation calendar. Another team built it; I integrated it so every customer saw real delivery and installation dates.
• Dates in search results: delivery and pickup dates next to every large product in search, worked out before the shopper searched: U.S. Patent 10,776,848, Large Product Presourcing Search Engine.
• Search and filter by date: delivery and installation availability worked out ahead of time for each area, so a shopper could filter to what can be delivered and installed by the day they need it: U.S. Patent 11,593,751, Pre-coordinating Delivery and Service Information for Item Searching and Filtering.
• Proven in checkout, then moved up the funnel: delivery dates launched in cart and checkout in October 2014, so customers no longer had to call Best Buy to schedule. Then came the product page, the listing page, search results in 2017, and date filters by 2019.

One set of dates served every large-product shopper: the soonest date for a refrigerator that just died, one chosen date for a move-in, and a "by" date for a TV before the big game.

The result

• Two U.S. patents granted for this work: large product presourcing for search (2020) and searching and filtering by delivery and installation date (2023).
• Large product presourcing launched in October 2014, with delivery dates in cart and checkout. In March 2015, Best Buy's CEO told investors it would grow large appliances and large TVs by "leveraging new regional inventory capabilities launched in October."
• In February 2016, Best Buy's CEO told investors its enhanced delivery and installation offerings for appliances were "driving higher conversion and material improvements in NPS."
• Appliances grew from 6% of Best Buy's revenue in fiscal 2012 to 13% of domestic revenue by mid-2019, when they were the largest driver of comparable sales.
• Best Buy ranked highest in J.D. Power's appliance retailer satisfaction study in 2017 and 2018. Delivery and installation are among the factors measured.
• Best Buy rose to No. 3 among U.S. major appliance retailers in 2017.

What I learned

Do the hard work before the shopper asks. A date is only instant at search because the sourcing and scheduling were settled long before.