SportScheck has decided to offer Same Day Delivery (SDD) for any items purchased at its 19 stores in Germany. The move is expected to offer an interesting alternative to pure internet players like Amazon and Zalando, which sell sporting goods in the country without the support of a physical store where customers can check out the merchandise and get expert advice before placing their orders.
For a supplement of €5.95, the items ordered from any of SportScheck's stores will be delivered to the customer's door in the evening at one of two desired time windows - between 8 and 9 PM or between 9 and 10 PM – or the next day, if that is his or her preference. In some cases, the order can be taken as late as at 7:15 PM and delivered the same evening.
Customers will be able to check the status of the delivery at any time online or by telephone. They will even be able to contact the deliverer directly. For economic and environmental reasons, small items may be brought over by bicycle.
Deliveries will be made by Liefery, a courier service with a network of 1,500 collaborators all over the country. Liefery is a subsidiary of Lufthansa Cargo whose clients include WMF, Sixt and Liebherr.
The SDD option may also apply at a later stage to products that are not available at the store. Customers can still order them directly on SportScheck's website or through the store personnel via tablet, accessing the retailer's entire catalog of about 36,000 products. They will then be delivered like before from the retailer's central warehouse in Apfelstätt, near Erfurt. About half of Sportscheck's sales are already made online, and between 80 and 90 percent of the orders are delivered the next day.
The new SDD service has been made possible by the installation of a new, high-performance SAP system as part of SportScheck's investment in omni-channel retailing by this subsidiary of the Otto Group. The decision to go ahead with the service was made after a particularly successful test with winter sports equipment and other products at three SportScheck stores in Munich, Stuttgart and Augsburg.
