Delivery Without Your Own Couriers: How It Works

You can deliver even if you have no couriers of your own. The customer orders from your website or bot, and the platform calls a courier from Yandex Delivery, Uzum Delivery, Wolt Drive, Taxi Millennium or Noor on its own. You pay no commission, only the delivery fee to the service.

Small restaurants often think: "we have no courier, so we can't deliver". That is wrong. Below we explain how an external courier works, what it costs and when your own courier is better.

Key points:

• A permanent courier is expensive: orders come unevenly, couriers are short at peak and paid while idle in quiet hours.
• An external service works when needed and you pay only for delivery.
• You can use your own couriers and an external service together.

Why is a permanent courier expensive for a small restaurant?

You pay a courier a salary every month, but orders come unevenly. At lunch and in the evening there are not enough couriers, in the morning and afternoon they sit idle. In quiet hours the salary goes to waste, and at peak the customer waits and leaves.

As a result a small business picks one of two losses: it doesn't launch delivery at all, or it runs at a loss. An external service solves this because payment depends only on completed deliveries.

How does delivery without couriers work?

The process has four steps: the customer places an order, the kitchen prepares it, the platform calls a courier service automatically, and the customer follows the courier on a map. You don't make phone calls and you don't look for a courier.

These services are connected in Delever: Yandex Delivery, Uzum Delivery, Wolt Drive, Taxi Millennium and Noor. You can combine them by zone and load. For example, one service works in the center and another on the outskirts. Order status is visible on the dispatcher screen, with your own couriers and the external service in one window.

How much does it cost?

The price has two parts: the platform module and the service's delivery fee. In Delever the courier services module costs 520,000 UZS per month per brand. The delivery itself you pay directly to the service at its own rate.

So find out the delivery price in advance and include it in the delivery cost. We showed how to calculate it in delivery order cost. You can show delivery to the customer as a separate price or make it free above a certain amount.

Your own courier or an external service: when which?

If orders are few and uneven, an external service pays off. If you have a steady, large flow every day, your own courier may be cheaper. For most, the best option is mixed: one or two own couriers and an external service at peak.

On the platform, an external service is called automatically when own couriers are not enough. For your own couriers, the dispatcher assigns the order or the courier accepts it in the app.

What should you watch for?

With an external service you have less control over delivery quality: time and service depend on them. So in the first week watch delivery times and ask customers for feedback. If there is a problem, you can make another service the main one.

One more thing: delivery price affects the customer's decision. Expensive delivery reduces orders. Let the customer see in advance what they will pay in their zone.

Conclusion

• Write down your order flow by hour: when are the peaks and quiet hours.
• Add the external service price to your delivery cost.
• Start with an external service for the first month, then calculate whether to add own couriers.

We show how to launch delivery without couriers in Delever: delever.io or @delever_bot on Telegram.