Contactless Delivery Program
RainBarrel.ca and RainBarrelFundraising.com have been providing rain barrel home delivery services for many years. In 2017, we coordinated the home delivery of 40,000 rain barrels in Chicago.With COVID-19 health and safety precautions in mind, we are prepared to support our 2021 Rain Barrel partners with the development of a home delivery service plan.
Sales with home delivery include a fee for providing the service. We recommend $10 per barrel or composter, $25 per tank and $10 when only accessories are being delivered. If accessories are ordered with a rain barrel, composter or tank, then the $10 delivery fee for accessories is not charged.
Depending on the distance from our location to your community, RainBarrel.ca may handle the deliveries, or your group can consider handling the deliveries and keep the delivery fee, or we will contract a local delivery service provider to handle the deliveries. It is impossible to guarantee a specific delivery date as we will not know how many deliveries will need to be made in each community. Like you, we will want to complete the deliveries as quickly as possible.
If RainBarrel.ca is not providing the delivery service, we will ship the ordered products to your community, where they will need to be unloaded. Ideally, our delivery truck would meet the local delivery truck and everything would be moved from truck to truck, while parked tail to tail. Other options include unloading at a warehouse or at a secure outside storage location. Tanks, and barrels laying on their sides, stacked in a pyramid format can sit outside, but the accessories and parts are best stored safely indoors. Two people can transfer 100 barrels, truck to truck, in 30 minutes or less.
In advance of the delivery and transfer of barrels, we will provide a detailed customer list separated for pick up and for delivery including, names, addresses, phone numbers, products, product quantities ordered and amounts owing, if any. We will attempt to organize deliveries to create the most efficient route, but will rely on the knowledge of local drivers to confirm the route.
We use delivery software that uploads the delivery list to smartphones. For each delivery, the address, phone number, products and product quantities appear in a list. The system links to Google Maps to provide GPS directions between delivery locations. Once on-site at a delivery location, the products are placed near the home, and a photo icon is selected to take a photo of the delivered products with the house in the background, as proof of delivery. The software uploads the photo and sends it via email to the customer and to us as a confirmation of delivery. We retain a copy of the photo and delivery details in our files. There is no need to knock on the customer's door for a payment or for a signature. Just move on to the next delivery address.
Orders of 50 barrels are best delivered in a 7 to 8 foot wide, 16 to 20 ft long enclosed trailer and pickup truck or with a cube-van. A pick up truck may have capacity to carry 6 to 10 barrels at a time, including the use of the back seat. Orders of 110 barrels can be delivered in a 24 ft box truck, but it can be much more tiring climbing up and down a dock-height truck, so multiple trips with a trailer or cube-van may be the better option. Pickup trucks, trailers and larger trucks are often available for rent at major retailers and vehicle rental facilities. It is difficult to predict how many barrels can be delivered in an 8 hour day as it will depend on many factors including traffic, distance between deliveries and number of barrels dropped at each location. Tanks are far more bulky, but they can be easily moved by carefully rolling them off a truck or trailer and along pavement or gently rolling them over grass to the desired location. One person per delivery vehicle can handle deliveries.
Let us know if you want to move forward with a home delivery plan. We know that home delivery is a service that is appreciated by many homeowners who don't have the means to pick up an order, who prefer the convenience of delivery, and who accept this as a best practice in social distancing responses to COVID-19.
Looking forward to hearing from you!