When we started building our platform, we made a decision early on: if something didn’t work for real businesses, we weren’t going to include it. And if no one had built the right version of it yet, we’d take the time to do it ourselves.
Delivery zones are a perfect example.
We kept seeing the same problem. Tools offered radius-based delivery or basic postcode lists, which seemed fine on the surface. But once you looked closer, they fell apart. A radius doesn’t care about a river, or a hill, or a dual carriageway. A postcode can include both sides of a motorway. None of it matches how businesses actually operate.
So we stopped looking for a workaround and built our own delivery zone system instead.
A Better Way to Define Delivery
Our zone system is fully custom and built into the platform. You don’t upload lists or define mileage rules. You click on a map and draw the exact area you want to deliver to.
Want to follow the edge of town? Done. Want to skip a few streets with awkward access? Easy. Want to charge a fee for anything further than 10 minutes out? Just create a second zone and set a price.
We use Mapbox for the mapping engine because it’s reliable, fast, and accurate. It gives you beautiful visuals and responsive performance, even with complex zones. But the business logic behind it - how pricing works, how zones are prioritised, how we match customer addresses - is all ours.
Why We Bothered
This wasn’t just about nice UX. It was about solving a very real pain point. We’ve worked with independent food businesses, multi-site brands, and local delivery operators. They all had the same frustration: either the tools were too rigid, or too much manual effort was needed to keep things running.
Some were turning away orders they could have fulfilled. Others were accepting deliveries that ended up taking 30 minutes longer than they should have. Neither of those outcomes help a business grow.
What they needed was control.
So we gave them a way to design zones that reflect how they actually work—on their terms.
How Businesses Are Using It Right Now
One of the best parts of launching this feature has been seeing how businesses put it to work. A few examples:
Local + commuter ring
A neighbourhood takeaway offers free delivery within a small zone around their kitchen, and charges an additional £1.50 to deliver to surrounding commuter towns. They’re able to reach more customers while keeping the books balanced.
Capacity-driven zones
Another team keeps things tight on Friday and Saturday nights to focus on fast prep and service. During the week, they expand their zones to reach areas that would otherwise be out of range. It’s a smart way to adapt to volume without burning out.
What’s Coming Next
Right now, zones are fixed - once you set them, they stay active until you change them. That works well for most teams, but we’ve been thinking about what comes next. The next evolution is time-based delivery zones.
We’re building tools that let you define zone schedules. You might choose to deliver further out on slower nights, then shrink back to your core zone on busy evenings. Or you might offer free delivery on Tuesday afternoons in one area, but charge on weekends. All of that will be possible.
The goal is to give you even more control, with less micromanagement. Set the rules once, and let the system handle the rest.
A Quick Look at the Customer Side
None of this would matter if it created friction for your customers. So the experience on their end is seamless.
When they enter an address, we instantly geolocate it to coordinates and check if it falls inside one of your zones. If it does, the correct delivery fee is applied to their cart. If not, we guide them to collection with a clear explanation.
No guesswork. No errors. Just a smooth checkout experience that reflects your real capabilities.
What This Says About Us
We didn’t build this feature to stand out. We built it because it was necessary.
That’s how we approach everything: we work closely with operators, we understand the problems, and then we build tools that solve them properly. Not half-measures, not workarounds, just good software that’s grounded in how businesses actually run.
If you’re in this space and you’ve ever wrestled with poor delivery tools or felt like your software was working against you, we’d love to show you what we’ve built. Or better yet, learn how we can make it even better.