One-stop shop for deliveries

Shopping local is getting a boost from an entrepreneur who used her high-tech expertise to make personal deliveries easier.

Vijaya Rao, founder and CEO of DeliveryCircle, developed a solution to a problem she noticed while working as an IT professional at Fortune 500 companies. With a busy work schedule, she wanted a service that would deliver products from local stores to her doorstep, and couldn’t find one.

Now, the technology she created is being used by people who are on the ground and know the community best.

“They are your friends and neighbors,” Rao said.

The system, DeliveryCircle.com, enables businesses, local delivery drivers and consumers to connect. It launched in Delaware this year and last week added six more states.

The startup was born inside the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce’s Emerging Enterprise Center, a small business incubator at 12 Penns Way in New Castle. The program links emerging entrepreneurs with technical assistance, low-cost office space and a Rolodex of seasoned business professionals who can offer advice on how to be successful, said Frank DeSantis, the center’s program manager.

These support systems can help with areas that might not be the entrepreneur’s area of expertise.

“We are here to challenge them,” said Robert Ciunci, a counselor with SCORE, a service that provides free business counseling.

Ciunci, a veteran Delaware businessman, has been helping guide Rao in the process of finding investors and financing.

DeliveryCircle isn’t a way to help local businesses mail packages – it leverages local delivery people to drop them off to customers. Consumers can rate the driver, choose their favorite and pick a drop-off time that is most convenient.

“Our goal here is we want to be local,” Rao said.

The business is built on the premise that shoppers want to buy local, but need the convenience of a delivery. Small businesses want to offer it, but find the cost and logistics to be a hurdle.

The DeliveryCircle system allows merchants to add a button to their website offering delivery. Those without an online presence can take orders by phone and set up delivery using DeliveryCircle’s website.

The cost of delivery depends on the driver selected. Generally speaking, the price could range from about $7 to $15 for a 20-mile radius for a consumer-initiated order. For a business service, a delivery within a 50-mile radius would vary from about $15 to $90 depending on weight, with an additional charge for deliveries of more than 50 miles.

The system helps local drivers, who are independent contractors screened by DeliveryCircle, to maximize earnings.

That’s why Levonne Mathis, a local driver, partnered with the company. They send him emails or text messages with details of his deliveries.

“The concept is simple and easy,” Mathis said.

And when Mathis wants to go on vacation, or take a day off, he can log in online to say so, and the DeliveryCircle system won’t allow customers to select him as a driver. Previously, he would have to pick up the phone and call each of his customers to tell them if he was taking time off.

Companies with a fleet of drivers also are signing up with DeliveryCircle. Delmarva Transportation has been in business since 1999. It has long thought of the idea of adding more automation to maximize efficiency, and DeliveryCircle provides it, said Bill Haymond, director of sales.

The system encourages drivers, who are client-rated, to actively seek customers and serve them well, making them an on-the-ground part of the sales team. Five-star drivers like Mathis can build a loyal base of customers that way.

Scott Soucy, the sales lead employed by DeliveryCircle, also works to find new drivers and merchants to grow the business.

He taps into online message boards frequented by people in the delivery and transportation business and promotes the service on social media, such as on Twitter @DeliveryCircle, to build buzz and brand awareness.

DeliveryCircle is working on a mobile app, which will include GPS, to schedule the drivers for pick-ups and deliveries in a way that limits unproductive driving time.

Feedback from the field helps them improve the business as they grow.

For example, it showed they can do more than deliver packages from businesses. One woman hired a driver to pick up and deliver a camera that she mistakenly had left at her brother’s house.

For Rao, the business supports what is important to her: helping people in communities connect. Hence, the word circle that is included in the business name.

“Our goal here is we want to be local,” she said.

Learn more about DeliveryCircle online at DeliveryCircle.com.

Contact staff writer Nichole Dobo at (302) 324-2281 or ndobo@delawareonline.com. On Twitter @NicholeDobo.