Hey, it's Phil from Routific, and today we're going to be walking you through
how to plan a delivery route with Google Maps. Let's get right to it!
So, you own your own business that does home deliveries and things are starting to pick up,
which is great. But the thing about delivery businesses is that when they get bigger,
planning your delivery routes gets a lot more complex.
So, looking at a tool like Google Maps for your route planning
is actually a really great move, especially because it's so easy to use and it's free.
But often with free tools, you have to sacrifice some functionality
and Google Maps is no different. When you're planning a route with Google Maps,
you can only plan for one driver at a time, a maximum of up to 10 stops,
there's no place for you to input any delivery or time constraints, and you have to manually
eyeball the route because there is no native route optimization software built into Google Maps.
So if you're looking for something a bit more robust i'd suggest taking a look at Routific.
Routific is a great way to delight your customers with fast deliveries and accurate ETAs,
combining powerful route optimization with five-star delivery experience.
Routific makes managing local delivery routes effortless and profitable, including features
that make your delivery experience great, like customer notifications or a delivery
tracking link that gives your customers even more visibility into their deliveries.
You can also integrate your Shopify store with Routific to make fulfilling orders
even quicker. you can find Routific's app in the Shopify App Store.
And good news for you, you can try Routific free for 7 days.
But if your route planning needs are a bit more simple and you don't mind spending a
little bit more time planning each route, then using Google Maps is definitely the way to go,
and here is a step-by-step guide on how to do just that.
If you're working with multiple drivers, you'll have to plan each driver's route individually.
Step One: Create territories.
You can make this process more streamlined by giving each of your drivers a territory.
And just to show you quickly, you can actually make these driver territories
using a tool called Google My Maps, and we'll link to it below,
but essentially this tool allows you to create territories and shapes on existing maps.
So here we have a map of Vancouver, with territories in the north east
south and west. And let's say that we want to create a new territory in this North Vancouver
part. So I'll click on this "draw a line" tool. I would select "add a line or shape" because we're
creating territories; we're not creating routes at this point. And then you just basically click
around. Click around the actual territory that this driver would be responsible for, so
let's just say that he is going to be clicking around here and driving making deliveries here.
And there you go. Rename this to, at this point it would be 'Driver 5',
and then you can customize it a little bit by adding a color, just so that you can visually
see it.. and this one's a bit similar to the ones that we already have so let's make it pink
and there you go. So now you have a new driver territory that you can start playing around with.
Step Two: you're going to have to eyeball the route to see what sequence
makes sense for your driver.
You can do that directly in Google by moving your stops around.
Step Three: Give your delivery drivers notes to make your routes more efficient,
compile notes for your drivers for where to park, where to drop off the delivery,
delivery times, ETAs and more. This will speed up your driver routes, meaning that
you can either pay less wages or can fit more stops into a single route.
Step Four: Build in batches of 10.
Now use Google Maps to find the shortest path between each stop.
You'll need to do this in batches of 10.
Step Five: Send the routes to your driver via email or SMS.
Since you can only plan 10 stops at a time,
you will have to repeat steps 2-5 until all your stops are planned.
And that's it! Planning delivery routes with Google Maps is honestly pretty
straightforward. But if you have any questions about that process,
leave a comment below and we'll be sure to get back to you as soon as possible.
If you are looking for any other tools that are going to help you plan with unlimited routes,
check out the video above. But if you're interested in checking out something a bit more
robust, like Routific, click on the link below and we'll get you set up with your free trial.
Until next time!