When the current arrangement stops working.
THE SIGNS
Deliveries taking longer than you promised More failed deliveries You personally spending most of your time on logistics Complaints about delivery outnumbering complaints about products
WHAT TO CHANGE
Move from personal delivery to a rider Move from one rider to a courier with wider coverage Restrict areas to what you can serve reliably Increase delivery charges to reflect the real cost Introduce collection as an option
THE UNCOMFORTABLE OPTION
Reducing coverage. Serving three areas well beats serving twelve badly, and the complaints from the nine you drop are fewer than the complaints from failing them.
COSTING IT AGAIN
As volume grows, courier rates become negotiable. Revisit them.
Also revisit what delivery actually costs you including failures, which people rarely recalculate.
SYSTEMS
At volume, recording deliveries by hand stops working. A record per order with courier and reference becomes necessary rather than optional.
THE PRINCIPLE
Delivery is where most Nigerian online businesses actually struggle. It deserves more attention than the website.
