Saucey business model: How does it work and earn money

Saucey is a popular alcohol delivery service that primarily offers its services in San Francisco, Chicago, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. The company was founded by Chris Vaughn, Daniel Leeb, and Andrew Zeck in 2013. The Saucey business model has plans to expand to other cities in the U.S. such as New York City. 

The courier services of Saucey deliver alcohol during the afternoons and nights after 12 PM till 1 AM on certain nights. Customers can select from a huge range of alcoholic beverages, cigars, and snacks from their website or app. The Saucey courier service is expected to deliver the ordered beverages within 30 minutes. 

Saucey business model

The team working at Saucey started developing the Saucey business model by running their deliveries by themselves for a delivery store. The same-store had previously offered them delivery service work but now it was under new leadership.

After they learned what can work for them and what will not work for them as far as conventional delivery was concerned, they evaluated many gig economy platforms. Some of them include other similar alcohol delivery services such as Minibar and Drizly. 

These other alcohol delivery services connected with the liquor stores just handling the delivery part of it, Saucey went for a different approach. They decided to handle the entire process indigenously. The company worked on everything from order to delivery. This made their services a lot more comprehensive than those employed by other businesses. 

Saucey also employs many unconventional marketing tactics. For instance, one of their marketing campaigns saw an alcohol order delivered by a person that resembled Frank Sinatra. 

Saucey couriers

Any Saucey courier generally speaking makes $10 every hour. Similar to GrubHub, these couriers sign up for particular shift blocks. They make $5 for every delivery. In addition to this, they make 50 cents for every item and a tip. Therefore, if a customer has ordered 4 items, you are going to make $7 apart from the tip. 

Most couriers have reported that they got an average tip of close to $6. As the orders for alcohol cost more than those for say McDonald’s, the Saucey alcohol delivery can expect to make bigger tips than those offered by other platforms. Another reason for this is, that most customers tip taking into consideration the percentage of the item price.

The general hours Saucey alcohol delivery works are 12 PM to 11 PM Monday to Thursday. On Fridays and Saturdays, their services work till 1 AM. On Sundays, the delivery services offer their services till 10 PM. The Saucey courier can pick the neighborhood they want to deliver to. 

These Saucey couriers will work in the range of 3-5 miles of the locations they have selected. All the drivers working for Saucey have to be at least 21 years old and own a reliable vehicle. They must own an Android or iPhone that is relatively new. You need to have auto insurance and a clean driving record.

What makes the Saucey business model stand out?

So, what makes the business model a success? Here are the reasons why this alcohol delivery start-up stood up among the competition.

1. Sophisticated technology: The Saucey founders began working on the project in October 2013. Within 5 months they developed a platform with a network of drivers and stores. This might appear to be a short period but the entrepreneurs had mobile app development experience. 

These three founders of Saucey met when they were working on a free calling and messaging app called textPlus. Rather than developing a fixed fax-machine like service, they opted for creating a sophisticated back-end marketplace technology that is capable of managing store inventories. 

When a customer places an order the system can analyze where they must send it and whether it is necessary to split it among different stores. So, the order might not get fulfilled by the nearest store but rather by the store that has all the items in stock. The store will assemble the order and the nearest driver will be identified. You can expect the delivery in an average time of 21 minutes.

2. Complete service for the customers: Saucey alcohol can service its retail clients by using its inventory data. So, they not only help the stores in raising their sales volumes but, they can purchase more with bulk orders. The Saucey team can not only provide technology to the stores but also the manpower. 

The company also provides rigorous driver training and application process. They pride themselves on providing a service like a hotel room that is friendly and honest. The company also makes every effort to make the entire process convenient and fun for their clients. They will remind you after you place the order, to keep the ids ready for scanning. 

All the items are marked to include taxes, delivery charges, and tips. This can make the pricing appear to be steep. But everything is convenient and the customers know that they are not playing games with pricing.

3. Cool features: The company has always tried to excite its customers and clients by using fun packaging and features. Every bottle comes with a Saucey tag hand stamped with a quote and a toast organized by the drivers. Some of these tags include promotional codes with discounts on offer for future orders. 

They also offer certain packages. For the Memorial Day weekend, they will offer a free bartender for 30 minutes to the customers that are spending more than $400. On the 4th of July, the customers get some fun favors if they ordered more than 12 packs of beer. 

Customers can also get some special packages with combinations of scotch, martinis, and Manhattans. This is just one of the ways of keeping the customers hooked to the brand and keeping the competition at bay.

4. A secure network: All the players operating in the alcohol delivery marketplace have to ensure that, they are working within the legal framework in all the regions they are serving. There are different laws in all the states. 

The Saucey CEO has confirmed that handling legal compliances was one of the first steps the company took while launching the business. They had met many city officials and lawyers to discuss this aspect of the delivery business. The main concern for them was ID-checking. So, all the Saucey drivers carry an ID scanner with them. 

Although the commission recommended ID scanning just for customers under the age of 35, Saucey drivers scan for all the customers to ensure that the ID matches with the credit card on file. While expanding their reach, the founders take time to connect with the local commissions and also establish contacts within the region.

Comparison with Drizly

If you compare Saucey with one of its top competitors Drizly, you will find that Saucey provides a better introductory discount. It also provides a better delivery fee as it is impossible to beat free delivery. This is a quite strong value proposition. Payless for faster delivery. There are no restrictions on ordering a minimum quantity of booze. So, you can get all the things you ordered. This is unlike Drizly and a majority of its retail partners.

Also, read about the 8 best alcohol delivery apps around the globe.

Funding

The alcohol delivery business raised $5.4 million in the form of a series A funding in 2017. This funding was led by the company Bullpen Capital and had participation from new investors such as Structure Capital, HashtagOne, and Blumberg Capital. 

Overall, Saucey, the Los Angeles-based alcohol delivery company has raised more than $10.2 million while competing with a huge number of organizations. They are facing tough competition though with larger players entering the market such as Instacart and Amazon.

Conclusion

The Saucey business model has no minimum order or delivery fee. They work with the local retailers about their pricing and charge them a fee depending on the order volume. They work with larger retailers where the pricing is cheaper than the average liquor store near you. The Saucey CEO says the company has no plans to expand into food delivery. 

If you are looking to develop a hyperlocal ordering platform for your alcohol delivery service or set up your own D2C brand for liquor delivery in your region, look no further than Jungleworks. The Jungleworks hyperlocal stack will take care of your businesses’ ordering, delivery, and customer engagement, all in one place. 

Book a demo and connect with our business experts to begin your entrepreneurial journey today.