A delivery platform with drones

Challenge

The client is a food and grocery delivery service in Iceland. Orders arrive in waves at lunch and dinner, and weather and distances between districts make delivery harder.

The service was growing faster than its platform. The store code was hard to change, and every improvement brought new bugs. Couriers had no proper tool and learned about orders by phone. On top of that, the client wanted to launch drone delivery, something almost nobody was running in production at the time.

Solution

• Core refactoringWe untangled years of changes, moved business logic into separate modules and covered key flows with tests. New features could now ship without fear of breaking checkout.
• Courier appWe built a MeteorJS app: couriers see assigned orders in real time with route and status, and dispatchers see where every order is.
• Drone deliveryWe added drones as a separate shipping method with its own rules: zones, order weight, weather limits and travel time.
• PWA storefrontThe mobile storefront works like an app: it opens fast, remembers the address and lets customers repeat a past order in a couple of taps.

How we worked

1. Stabilisation

   We started with refactoring and tests so the platform could handle growth and further changes.

2. Operations tools

   Next we launched the courier app, which cut manual coordination right away.

3. New channels

   Then came the PWA storefront and drone delivery, first as a pilot in a limited zone.

4. Long-term development

   For three years Softera's team served as the service's tech team and grew the platform along with the business.

Outcome

Sales grew by 30%, couriers and dispatchers work in one system, and drone delivery became part of the service and a clear edge over competitors.