Delivering Solutions: Two Founders’ Journey in Transforming Retail Experiences

It’s a story as old as…well, perhaps not time, but as old as the internet. 

It goes something like this: in an epicenter of technology companies, two people converge, discover their commonalities, and are determined to forge their grand vision.

That’s the origin story of plenty of partnerships, and it doesn’t veer far from the course when telling the story of Delivery Solutions’ founders, Manil Uppal, and Arshaad Mirza. The pair crossed paths over a decade ago in the growing technology hub of Plano, Texas.

That initial encounter led to the founding of their first company, a successful exit, and an ongoing collaborative relationship guided by a shared vision for optimizing the retail industry. 

Proof of concept: Revolutionizing Delivery

The duo's first experience came from an alcohol delivery startup called 'Lash' with the simple goal of having “the Liquor, Beer, Wine, and restaurants come to you.” Here, Manil and Arshaad dove headlong into the complexities of logistics, understanding the intricacies of on-demand delivery.

That’s when Manil and Arshaad identified a recurring theme with any on-demand delivery format: the bigger the fleet, the bigger the beast to feed. Which to them translated into a future where existing closed delivery networks would eventually open up access to their logistics capabilities in order to optimize monetization of their capital assets.

So as the market and buyer behavior changed, LASH embraced a hybrid model augmenting their own private fleet with crowd sourced third party delivery providers. 

Stitching the first same day 3rd party provider ecosystem and making it affordable as software as a service to retailers made perfect sense. Their vision was to balance the domination of exclusive marketplaces and vertically integrated ecommerce powerhouses by putting power back in the hands of the retailers.

What they foresaw was something we now take for granted: a platform that allows companies to power their stores with omnichannel capabilities to accommodate flexibility of choice around order fulfillment, not just those originating from their marketplaces. 

“We wanted to be “asset-like”,” said Manil. “We came from a software and B2B sales background, and that was kind of the genesis of this idea that we didn’t even have a name for yet.”

The Genesis of Delivery Solutions

So, they left the world of alcohol delivery behind and founded Delivery Solutions, focusing on the fundamental goal of delivery aggregation. Granted, they didn’t stray too far from their established base, as their first customer was 'Total Wine and More', the “country's largest independent retailer of fine wine”. 

“Delivery Solutions’ innovative orchestration system, coupled with its team’s encyclopedic knowledge, provides us with the nimbleness to quickly solve issues when they arise and get our products to our customers,” says Matthew Vorcheimer, VP of Product Management at Total Wine and More.

This collaboration allowed them to affirm their idea and put it to work. They formed Delivery Solutions as a comprehensive, integrated platform that would unlock the ability for any retailer to offer the same smooth customer experience that giants like Amazon can deliver without the capital asset investment.

Getting to that target required much hands-on time from Arshaad and Manil. 

The two were on the front lines, hustling to close deals and attending trade shows. They set up the building blocks. During one conversation, they shared how they showed up three cars deep outside their customer's door, witnessing firsthand how an order delivers not just a product but an experience.

As Arshaad puts it, "When you're disrupting, you build something that impacts the end consumer. Even though we are B2B, everything we do results in our retailers being able to impact their end customers. To be able to see that reaction and influence is fantastic." 

One of the founders' main challenges was convincing traditional, slow-moving retailers to innovate their delivery models. In 2017, this was a contentious uphill battle. However, Amazon purchasing Whole Foods in August 2017 spurred grocers across the nation to adopt some form of a broader omnichannel strategy that put the customer experience at its core. And the COVID-19 pandemic would eventually force this as  an imperative on most CEOs’ agenda. 

Soon every retailer was propelled headlong into leveraging omni-channel solutions.

Delivery Solutions: Beyond the Cart 

The partnership with Total Wine was their model with all their customers. Instead of building things they think their customers would like to see, they did something far simpler: they asked.

After all, B2B customers understand best what their B2C customers are asking for. As Arshaad said, “All customers care about their consumer’ experience. That's where you can win, build mindshare and differentiate. If your end consumer doesn't care about the experience being delivered by your brand, you don't have an emotional connection with them; you won't have the exponential longterm traction with your business.”

Delivery Solutions’ focus on building what its customers want and need has already helped dozens of major retailers save millions through reduced cancellations and intelligent orchestrated choices all while rapidly smoothing out their internal operations, thanks to the flexibility of the platform.

But it has always been more than operational benefits for Manil and Arshaad. The infinite game is won or lost by retailers who have harnessed the magic of experience management and they believe the Delivery Solutions product they invented enables retailers to provide the X factor beyond the cart.

As for the future, the two dynamic entrepreneurs aren’t looking to get complacent any time soon. Both founders believe that, while they are blessed with a best-in-class platform now, technology is constantly evolving the way consumers shop.

“We are like software engineers,” Manil said, “We are scientists, always experimenting and always testing things.”

Over the years, the company's operations and the scope of its services has expanded, its core mission remains steadfast: delivering a superior end-consumer experience.

Manil and Arshaad are focused on using beyond-the-cart analytics and post-purchase interactions to influence how retailers interact with consumers throughout the entire e-commerce journey. The possibilities of what's beyond the cart are revolutionizing upstream purchasing decisions.

They believe we are moving to an economy that is moving from pulling customers to the cart to one where the cart is contextually relevant, readily available to meet the modern consumer where they are.

Schedule a demo with the team at Delivery Solutions today to discover how they can streamline your returns process through automation.