Same-day delivery app for your business: take orders online and deliver today

Customers order and pay through your app, the order lands on your board, and your driver drops it off the same day instead of next week.

Who it's for

You run a small courier or local delivery outfit. Maybe it is you, a packer and two drivers in a van, serving a city and the suburbs around it. You take orders by phone, by text and through your Facebook page. The problem bites at ten in the morning, when the phone rings for the fifth time, the driver is already halfway across town, and you are trying to remember whether the order on the back of the envelope was for today or tomorrow.

The problem today

Everything goes through me. Someone calls, I write the address on a notepad, then I text it to whichever driver is closest. Half the time I get the unit number wrong because I took it down in a hurry. Customers ask what it costs to the east end and I have to work it out again each time. People phone back an hour later asking where their parcel is and I have to call the driver to find out. At the end of the day I am chasing money, because some paid by e-transfer, some handed cash to the driver, and one or two just forgot. I know I lose orders when I cannot pick up the phone.

What the app does, screen by screen

1. Order page — The customer sees what you deliver, which areas you cover, what the fee is to their postal code, and the cutoff time for a drop-off today.
2. Checkout — The customer enters the pickup and drop-off address, picks a window for today, adds a note for the door, and pays by card.
3. Where is my order — The customer follows their order from accepted to packed to out for delivery, and sees who is bringing it, so they stop phoning the office.
4. Order board — Staff and the owner watch new orders land, see the ones closest to cutoff first, and mark each one packed and ready for a driver.
5. Driver run sheet — The driver gets their stops for the day in order, taps an address to open the map, and marks each one delivered with a photo at the door.
6. Owner day view — The owner sees the day's orders, what was paid, what is still out on the road, and which stops are running behind.
7. Areas and prices — The owner sets the delivery fee for each area, the cutoff time for same-day, and which days the service runs.

Who uses it and what it keeps track of

• Orders — Who ordered, pickup and drop-off address with unit and buzzer, what is being moved, size or weight band, delivery window, note for the door, fee, whether it is paid, and where it is up to. The customer sees their own orders. Staff and the owner see all of them.
• Customers — Name, phone, email, saved addresses and past orders. Visible to staff and the owner. Each customer sees only their own details.
• Drivers and runs — Who is on today, which stops are theirs, the order of the stops, time delivered and the photo at the door. A driver sees their own run. The owner sees every run.
• Areas and fees — Postal codes or neighbourhoods you cover, the fee for each, the cutoff time and the days you run. The owner sets it. Customers only see the fee that applies to them.
• Payments — What was charged on each order, when it cleared, and what is still owing. The owner sees everything. Staff see whether an order is paid before it goes out.

What it changes for the business

Orders arrive written down properly, with a real address and a buzzer code, instead of scribbled on an envelope. The phone stops ringing with where is my parcel, because the customer can see it moving. No more sending a driver out for an order that was never paid for, and no more chasing e-transfers at nine at night. You can take an order while you are driving, because you are not the one taking it. And the orders that used to go elsewhere when you could not answer the phone now come in on their own.

The one decision that matters

Do you charge the card at checkout, or let people pay the driver at the door. Pay at the door feels friendlier and some of your regulars will expect it. But same-day means your driver is already in the van before anyone has handed over money, and a no-show at the door costs you the whole run. Take payment at checkout. Keep cash or an invoice only for your account customers, the offices and shops you deliver for every week, and bill those monthly. That way the one-off orders are paid before a driver moves, and your regulars keep the arrangement they already have with you.

What to build first, and what can wait

First build the order page, checkout with card payment, the order board and the driver run sheet, with your fees set by area and one cutoff time. That is enough to take an order and get it delivered without you touching the phone. Leave live dot-on-a-map tracking, booking for a date next week, recurring weekly pickups, driver pay reports and customer ratings for later. Status updates on the tracking page answer the where is it question without the extra work.

How BooDoo builds it

You describe the business and the app in plain words and BooDoo builds it. It sets up the database and the sign-in behind it, so customers, drivers and you each land on your own screens. The same request gives you a website on its own address and an Android app you can put on Google Play under your own account, and you can connect your own domain. Card payments, maps for the run sheet and a text when the driver is on the way come in through ready integrations, with a WhatsApp button so people can ask a question first. Change the fees or the cutoff later by describing the change.

How you'll know it works

Orders start showing up on the board before you have had your first coffee, and nobody phoned to place them. The second sign is quieter: a day goes by without anyone calling to ask where their delivery is.

Build it

Paste this in and it gets built.

I run a same-day courier and delivery business and I want customers to order through an app instead of phoning me. Build me a phone app with a website behind it where customers see our delivery areas, the fee to their postal code and the cutoff time for today, enter the pickup and drop-off address with a unit and buzzer, pick a window, and pay by card. I need a sign-in for me and my drivers. Give me an order board where new orders land so my packer can mark them ready, and a run sheet for each driver with their stops in order, a tap to open the map, and a photo at the door when it is dropped. Text the customer when the driver is on the way, and let them see where their order is up to. Let me set my fees by area and my cutoff time myself, and put a WhatsApp button on the site so people can ask before they order.