Crowd Delivery

[Mark Thien]

Hi guys,

I have visited piggybee website which utilise traveler to transport goods from one country to the others. However, I think this is pretty dangerous as it attracts illegal goods smuggling. Piggybee is pretty good idea but it just that it is hard to trust anyone who is asking you to bring something to other country.

I am thinking that it would be better to deliver goods in local only. For example, I want to go to Pasir Ris tomorrow and I am staying in Jurong West, I will post it on web or a mobile app about my journey and I am willing to deliver item to Pasir Ris with a fee depends on the size and weight. This will create an extra income for the delivery man and also save time for the other party.

I know someone will tell that hardly anyone want to deliver item for other as they may have no clue what is inside the box or perhaps it is an illegal item. In addition, another doubt will come out is that how can we trust the delivery man. This of course the system can request copy of national id of the delivery man, short interview thru video conferencing or etc as a verification before he/she can be a delivery man.

Some may think that who the hell want this kind of service as Singapore is small. Please think of countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and etc.

What do you guys think? Any comment(s) would be highly appreciated :-)

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Cheers,

Mark Thien

[Hugh Mason]

Meng and I talked about a service like this a couple of years back. I wonder too why nobody is doing it. There are so many delivery trucks running around and if, quietly, the guys driving them could make a bit of extra cash without telling the boss I am sure they would. I guess the trick would be to have some kind of trust rating system like ebay where you can see if your freelance delivery man is timely, reliable etc.

[Mark Thien]

Yes I fully agree that trust is the biggest barrier here and this barrier need to be crushed :P

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 6:22 PM, Hugh Mason <hu...@jfdi.asia> wrote:

Meng and I talked about a service like this a couple of years back. I wonder too why nobody is doing it. There are so many delivery trucks running around and if, quietly, the guys driving them could make a bit of extra cash without telling the boss I am sure they would. I guess the trick would be to have some kind of trust rating system like ebay where you can see if your freelance delivery man is timely, reliable etc.

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Cheers,

Mark Thien

[nawaz anwarudeen]

Crowd sourced logistics. Recently couple of startups got funded in the valley. Crowd based rating system should work. AirBnB for pickup and drop off. Insurance should be worked in the business model.

[Shalabh Pandey]

Interesting concept. 

Since the direct competition would be with (local) courier companies- some thoughts come to the mind straightaway:

1) Courier companies have a business model around this that makes sense. They deliver a whole bunch of products at similar locations- so economically- they can charge users less. A single person delivering an item(s) at single location will be expensive

2) Courier services are trusted. Packets are picked up and delivered. How would timely delivery be taken care of? How do we ensure delivery? 

3) Even if I (delivery person) am going from Pasir Ris to Jurong, I need to first find your place (within pasir ris), pick up the packet- go look for the destination location (within Jurong) and then deliver. While the paperwork in this model can be digitized, the physical delivery needs some more thought. This needs a lot of motivation for an ordinary person travelling from one place to another. 

4) This would probably work both ways. If you wanted to send a packet- you would log in to the app and issue that order. The likelihood that someone 'that motivated' is travelling to the same place as you want your packet to be delivered, and at around the same you want it delivered? Consistency would always be a problem. 

In countries like Indonesia and even Malaysia (most other countries actually), establishing and vetting identities would not be a very easy task. 

On the other hand, if there is a robust mechanism recruiting the right people travelling on the same route daily, vetting them, insuring (breakages, etc) packets and committing on sure and timely deliveries- there is something to it. 

I would think of it as a kind of an open source courier company- Takes orders through web/mobile, channels to one delivery person (out of many potentials), records delivery time and ensures guarantees. All this at a cheaper cost. 

Then of course, who would not be sold. Keep on thinking.  

Shalabh

The Whiz Times

[Niall Greenwood]

Mark, 

This sounds like 'car sharing for package delivery' - so in principle an analogue service, utilizing spare capacity, that has scope for automation. 

I would start with a customer centric view - what does your customer need/value? Some deliveries are very time critical - think legal documents that get bike couriered across town for speed, or are very bulky - think white goods delivery, navigating stairs/lifts, 2/3 people to carry items. So I would get close to your target customers and understand what their core business is, time tolerance and price sensitivity.

Then think of the other practical issues:

a) The big players (FedEx, UPS, DHL..) charge a premium for their brand reputation, and for the systems they use - what are you going to do about missing/broken items (insurance?); how will you replicate the goods tracking and sign-for technologies etc that they offer (online?). How will your customer service operate (online/phone?) - although this can be automated customers normally want to speak to a person; this and the trust factor is what attracts the price premium.

b) Your drivers will often be using company owned vehicles, and working in company time - how much spare capacity is there to utilize, and how will you make this attractive, against what you can pay from a low price point offering (hint: the current practice is to do deliveries outside of core business hours, however, many taxi drivers stop working after they have 'made enough money for the day')?

c) What about collection and drop-off - these are core logistics issues, with no real resolution. Would you leave packages at security, on doorsteps, or would you return until you delivered - how many visits? You need a policy and a way to enforce all of this. Take a look at the laundry operations starting up across Silicon Valley/San Francisco - many off them use innovative drop off and pick up solutions.

d) Also don't assume the bigger markets - Malaysia, Indonesia etc - are necessarily easier than Singapore. Yes, there are more people, but price points will be lower as the competition will be cheaper, there is also more to go wrong the less 'developed' local systems are (although there are exceptions - check out the amazing dabbawala system in Mumbai).

e) I would consider rating drivers, and using a Grab Taxi type app to allocate work between available and pre-screened delivery guys.

All that said there would be scope for innovation here, if your model can cater to the practicalities, and get some uptake.

Niall

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Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 08:11:28 -0700
From: shalab...@gmail.com
To: open...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [OpenFrog] Re: Crowd Delivery

[Roland Turner]

On 04/01/2014 06:16 PM, Mark Thien wrote:

> I am thinking that it would be better to deliver goods in local only.
> For example, I want to go to Pasir Ris tomorrow and I am staying in
> Jurong West, I will post it on web or a mobile app about my journey
> and I am willing to deliver item to Pasir Ris with a fee depends on
> the size and weight. This will create an extra income for the delivery
> man and also save time for the other party.

As with pretty much any business, you need to be delivering value that
your customers are willing to pay for. You don't appear to have
identified what value you'd deliver over and above existing courier
services. Further, you need to be able to do this at an acceptable price
while covering operational costs plus the costs of reaching customers
and convincing them to change (plus a return on investment if you're
taking any). I don't know the situation with courier services in
Indonesian and Malaysian cities, but certainly in Singapore and
Australian cities the "book a courier to move a package from point A to
point B within timeframe C" is a thoroughly solved problem. If you're
not delivering some substantial new value, or perhaps some substantial
new efficiency if you've identified a price-sensitive untapped market,
then it's hard to see the opportunity here; it feels more like a
solution (arising from an observation about apparent excess capacity)
looking for a problem. This sometimes gives rise to a viable business,
but usually does not.

Is there a niche here? A [potential] demand that the incumbents not only
aren't addressing, but would be unable to address profitably if they
tried to?

- Roland

[ongj...@hotmail.com]

Competing against the big boys in terms of pricing, security, branding and reputation will be too difficult. A platform for customers to list their delivery requests where trusted/verified courier services will bid for might work. Since some courier services might be delivering a large number of packages to a certain area, the marginal cost of delivering an additional package will be much lower. Therefore the courier service can bid for the request at a lower price while providing the same level of security.

[Manar Hussain]

An interesting related business started in, I believe, Holland when students were given free public transport throughout the country. Someone realised students valued time cheaply, especially if they could read or socialise at the same time and set up a courier delivery company using students. No transport costs at all. m

[Mark Thien]

This is exactly what I am talking about :)

http://e27.co/easyvan-lets-singaporeans-move-physical-goods-with-an-app-20140630/

Cheerio,

Mark Thien

On 25 Jun, 2014, at 0:41, Manar Hussain <ma...@ivision.co.uk> wrote:

An interesting related business started in, I believe, Holland when students were given free public transport throughout the country. Someone realised students valued time cheaply, especially if they could read or socialise at the same time and set up a courier delivery company using students. No transport costs at all. m

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