Mobile eCommerce Offers Landscapers Speed, Transparency by the Truckload

When builders or landscapers order rock, sand, gravel or asphalt by the ton, there are several pieces that need to come together. They need to get the right product, at the right price, delivered on time and ideally purchased from a supplier that’s nearby so that the transportation costs are minimized.

Typically, the buyer would source the material and the freight separately. This involves calling suppliers of material, calling truckers and then waiting.

“One of the big reasons why construction projects get delayed is because the lead times for getting heavy materials — especially early on in the project — push everything back,” James Wicker, chief technology officer at Rockery, told PYMNTS.

Dynamic Routing

Rockery offers a business-to-business (B2B) app that lets buyers order and track the delivery of these building materials. It selects the supplier and arranges the delivery. By integrating digital payments along with the routing software, the company streamlines the entire experience.

“We reduce the process of buying materials to the single tap of a button,” Wicker said. “We make the process as simple as possible for builders.”

Because Rockery works with many truckers and suppliers of materials in each of the markets in which it operates, it can reduce the lead time from days to hours.

It also reduces the cost by sourcing the products close to the jobsite. Using Onfleet delivery management software, Rockery can also deploy a dynamic routing system that enables it to choose a supplier near where its trucks are located.

“Half of the landed cost of the material is the freight, so it will tend to double the cost of the landed material every hour it travels,” Wicker said. “We have every incentive to be really good at sourcing, and we are really good at sourcing, so we know exactly where to go.”

The delivery software also provides real-time vehicle tracking and estimated times of arrival and delivers these to the buyer in a link sent via SMS, so it reduces the need for the phone calls that are otherwise very common in this process.

Streamlining Payments

Payments in this industry are generally done by making a phone call and giving the person on the other end of the line a credit card number, which they write down using pen and paper.

The Rockery app streamlines the payments experience by bringing integrated payments to this industry. Buyers generally prefer to pay by credit card, so the merchant fees associated with those payments are part of the cost of doing business.

“Most of our customers pay with credit card,” Wicker said. “That’s actually really useful because a lot of our customers are subcontractors and they don’t have an accounts payable department, they don’t want to receive mail — they just want to pay and get their stuff.”

The company also supports digital invoicing and net terms for the smaller number of customers who use them.

Paying Truckers Quickly

Rockery owns some trucks and then partners with truckers when it needs excess capacity or moves into new markets.

When it hires third-party truckers, it generally pays them via automated clearing house (ACH) transfers. Because the Onfleet software tracks tasks and deliveries in real time and provides a record of where truckers picked up the material and how far they drove, Rockery can generate an invoice and pay them immediately.

That’s very different from the typical model in this industry in which truckers must provide evidence of where they picked up from and their time and then wait two weeks to get paid.

“Freight invoicing is a huge problem in this business,” Wicker said. “The truckers love working with us because we’re really good about paying them — usually same day.”

Rockery currently operates in the San Francisco and San Diego areas and will soon add San Antonio. As it grows, the company aims to continue solving problems and bringing the convenience of eCommerce to this part of the construction and landscaping industries.

“If you don’t know about this industry, you probably don’t care too much about rocks, but the entire world around you is actually built out of the materials we sell,” Wicker said. “The next time you drive, take a look around — you’ll see the dump trucks.”