What is delivery and quick commerce software?
Delivery and quick commerce software is the system that connects an order to a rider and a doorstep, then proves the handover. It has three parts: a backend that tracks everything, an ops screen for the people running the day, and a rider app in the delivery partner’s hand.
Restrologic built all three for Zippee. The work is described in the Zippee case study. This page explains what such a system needs, so you can judge any vendor against it, including us.
Why is last-mile delivery hard to run on spreadsheets and chat groups?
Last-mile delivery is hard to run on spreadsheets and chat groups because the delay comes from small gaps between people. A rider reaches the gate and waits. A customer is unreachable. An ops manager learns about it from a phone call.
When the promise is short, every such gap is visible to the customer. The common failure points are these:
- Nobody knows where a rider is until the rider reports it.
- Arrival and handover are recorded by hand, so the times are guesses.
- A customer accepts three of four items, and the system has no way to record that.
- Disputes about whether something was delivered have no evidence.
- Cash taken at the door is tracked on paper.
Each point needs data captured at the moment it happens, and not afterwards.
How does live rider tracking work?
Live rider tracking works by having the rider app send GPS positions in the background to a backend that stores the route and shows it on a map. The ops team sees where each rider is, and the route trail stays on record after the trip.
Our Go backend receives the position stream and keeps a live ops feed of events, so a manager sees a rider start, arrive, hand over and finish without calling anyone. Rider shifts are part of the model, which lets ops see who is on duty and who is not.
What do geofences and OTPs do?
Geofences mark arrival, pickup and delivery automatically when a rider’s position enters a defined area, and OTPs confirm the handover with the right person. Together they remove most manual status updates.
| Control | What it replaces | What ops gains |
|---|---|---|
| Geofence at pickup | Rider tapping “reached” | Accurate pickup time |
| Geofence at drop | Rider tapping “arrived” | Honest arrival time |
| Delivery OTP | Verbal confirmation | A confirmed handover |
| Pickup OTP | Signature on paper | A confirmed collection |
| Photo proof | A claim from the rider | Evidence for disputes |
Partial deliveries are supported, so if a customer takes some items and refuses others, the record shows exactly which.
What does the rider app need to do well?
A rider app needs to be fast with one hand, clear at every step, and reliable when the phone is in a pocket. Our React Native app walks the rider through each delivery step by step, supports barcode scanning for parcels, runs GPS in the background and handles cash collection.
Fewer screens means fewer mistakes. The app asks for one action at a time, and the backend validates it, so the rider cannot skip a step the operation depends on. The ops web app, built in React, shows the other side of the same data.
What runs underneath?
The platform runs on AWS, defined with Terraform and Ansible so the setup can be rebuilt from code. The database is a highly available Postgres cluster with point-in-time backups, which lets the team restore to a moment before a mistake.
Monitoring uses Grafana, Prometheus and Loki. Dashboards show request health, and logs are searchable when something looks wrong. This matters for delivery more than most software, because the busiest hour is also when an outage costs the most.
How does this apply to quick commerce and dark stores?
Quick commerce adds a picking step and a tight clock to the same delivery problem. The delivery layer above handles the last mile. The store side needs stock that reflects what is on the shelf and a way to switch items off when they run out.
Our restaurant platform already treats a dark store as a type of store, with stock and menu controls. If you run dark stores, we scope the picking and dispatch flow around your layout and connect it to the delivery backend. See the restaurant industry page for how the store side works.
What should you ask any vendor?
Ask whether the system records events at the moment they happen, whether the rider app works for a tired person on a bad day, and who restores the database at 2 am. Ask to see the monitoring, not a slide about it.
You can also ask us to walk through the Zippee build with an engineer on the call. If your operation looks closer to fleets and trucks than parcels, read the logistics and fleets page. Otherwise write to Deepak on the contact page with your delivery volume and the step that hurts most.