For a product to go from a thumbnail on an e-commerce site to eventually ending up into the hands of a customer, it is a process that is often filled with anticipation, patience, delay, and a lot of hidden logisitics. I say hidden, because as a customer I really wouldn’t appreciate how well coordinated a company’s people, processes and software essentially are—especially when I’m waiting for something that I ordered online to be delivered.
I just want it delivered as soon as possible.
Zairi felt the same way, he was frustrated with the fact that he had to wait an entire weekend (even after paying RM28 for delivery) for his batteries to be delivered online.
Disgruntled with the process and the wait, he quickly reached out to Abner, and they soon began a discourse about creating an app for instant delivery. After 4 months of intensive work, they both co-founded PostoExpress together.
In essence, PostoExpress is an on-demand dispatch platform that connects customers with thousands of dispatch riders with customers that are looking to send parcels, documents and literally anything that can fit on a bike, from anywhere and anytime.
Customers can simply request a pickup through the mobile app that’s available on both the App Store and the Google Play Store, and they’ll be able to find a dispatch rider in less than 3 minutes on average and PostoExpress will ensure that your package and/or parcel is delivered within 3 hours within the same territory.
Their mobile app also allows you to track deliveries in real-time and you can also pay for the delivery right from the app.
What’s The Big Deal?
Given that we live in a fast-paced world and that we are always in need for instant gratification, there’s no doubt that there’s a need for services that promise “instant delivery.”
It’s a no brainer, really.
For that very reason, courier services, concierge services among others continue to compete to be able to deliver products faster and at reasonable rates, not just for clients that need their pair of headphones delivered ASAP, but also for corporate clients that are patiently waiting for their documents, equipment and their logistics to be handled with efficiency and care.
The more time they are able to save up by outsourcing the nitty-gritty of menial tasks and processes, the more time they’re able to free up to concentrate on strategic decisions that do matter.
While such services do compete for a similar outcome, there’s a clear distinction between PostoExpress and the rest. PostoExpress doesn’t force their customers to conform to their schedules like standard courier services often do, but they find ways to work around customers’ schedules.
Concierge services on the other hand, although convenient, are often opaque in their process and it’s also quite impossible for them to accommodate bulk orders.
Abner (the co-founder) said, “We deliver faster than FedEx and DHL for the same prices as a standard courier service. We have tracking on all our riders. Customers know exactly when the rider has reached each of his or her checkpoints and all our receipts and data are relayed back without the use of a middleman.”
PostoExpress also insures the items for up to a maximum of RM100 at the moment and they are also unaware of the contents that are being delivered, which is ideal if you need to get confidential documents delivered quickly.
In Under 3 Hours?
Despite the inherent need in the market for “instant delivery”, their main challenge was to create an incredibly complex crowdsourced logistics system that they could both present and market in a simplistic way.
In order to do so, they spent time both developing and iterating upon their proprietary software to ensure that they match up the right riders with appropriate jobs. Upon doing so, they even had to spend time convincing their customers that they could deliver the necessary items in less than 3 hours within the Klang Valley.
Zairi said, “We are happy to say that every single one of our customers who tried us have given us repeat business.”
“For our customers, ordering via PostoExpress should feel like magic. We handle all the complexity and the organization and all they should experience is the delivery of their product in near instant time,” he added. They’ve been operational for over 2 months and they’ve completed over 980 deliveries during that time.
PostoExpress is operating in a very competitive last-mile logistics space and they believe they can obtain a competitive edge by focusing solely on 3-hour deliveries, providing unparalleled user experience through their mobile apps and also by ensuring that their customers receive service that’s of the highest standard.
PostoExpress understands that a healthy ecosystem of dispatch riders is definitely the key to their service. They continue to garner growth among their pool of dispatch riders by firstly respecting their right to earn a basic living through the platform and by also letting them keep 80% of the revenue that’s generated on every ride. They also provide them with the flexibility to choose their working hours, all they need to do is to turn on the app every time they wish to work.
Due to this healthy work culture, many of the dispatch riders on the platform are very proactive in terms of providing a standard of service to the customers. They understand that they are representing themselves and they do take great pride in making sure that each order arrives on time and that they treat the customers and the packages with care.
Verdict: 3/5
Despite operating in a highly competitive space, the team at PostoExpress has set their eyes on disrupting the industry as a whole. They feel that they can usher the e-commerce industry in Malaysia, which is relatively large by facilitating orders to be delivered in less than 3 hours, a feat that’s currently not possible.
This of course is part of their bigger picture where the moniker, PostoExpress would become synonymous with the word instant delivery and also where they can disrupt traditional courier services by guaranteeing a maximum delivery time of 3 hours.
“PostoExpress is an instant delivery app, but it is also in more abstract terms, an ambition. It is an ambition to set the standard of delivery within KL to be no more than three hours. It is an ambition to have anything delivered instantly at an affordable price,” Zairi said.
While these are clearly big dreams, I do wonder if it would ever become a reality in the near future. While delivering documents from point A to point B in less than 3 hours may sound simple enough to a layman’s ears, there are still so many complexities that need to be addressed.
They need to address the operational complexities of time constraints, vehicular constraints, the rules imposed on drivers, managing customer requirements, formulating the fastest route of transportation, and so much more. All these concerns need to be addressed to just get packages from point A to point B efficiently over and over again.
Now imagine the complexities that they need to address if they want to create a world where anything you’d like to order online is delivered to you in less than 3 hours.
These I believe are concerns that huger courier services shouldn’t have a problem addressing because of the number of resources and partnership networks that are available at their disposal.
Now I’m not sure PostoExpress would be able to achieve their desired impact by relying on enthusiasts that want to make a buck by being dispatch riders, primarily because of the disparity between what the skill and expertise their vision demands and the personal experiences of their riders.
They may be able to successfully deliver 980 packages over the course of 2 months but the question still remains—is their uberesque model robust enough to handle 980 delivery requests in a day let alone in under 3 hours?
Only time will tell.