Just last year, we introduced new startup Park N Parcel, which wanted to solve the perennial problem of missed parcel deliveries with a simple solution.
Their solution is using individuals that the startup calls ‘Parkers’, who volunteer to be parcel drop off and pick up points for their neighbours. For each successfully delivered parcel, ‘Parkers’ would earn $1.
Founded by 3 young Singaporeans, Erik Cheong (Co-Founder & COO), Bryan See Toh (Co-Founder & CEO), and Tan Gan Hong (Co-Founder & CFO), Park N Parcel is a startup under NUS Enterprise’s portfolio, and was launched in Jan 2017.
Since then, they have expanded their pool of Parkers to 1,500, and introduced a Mall-to-Mall delivery option last November.
Currently, they deliver more than 15,000 parcels per month.
Park N Parcel Receives S$850,000 Seed Funding
On Thursday (18 Apr 2018), Park N Parcel announced that they have completed its S$850,000 seed round investment, led by TRi5 Ventures and a group of angel investors in March 2018.
Said Mr Christopher Quek, Managing Partner of TRi5 Ventures, “Park N Parcel has shown credibility and the tenacity to resolve an identified gap in the lastmile logistics market.”
“Today’s online retail landscape offers unprecedented opportunity as it presents new challenges and we place our confidence with Park N Parcel who has proven to identify levers for improving productivity, increasing operational efficiency, and driving growth to scale in the region.”
With the funding, Park N Parcel intends to strengthen its core leadership team, scale its clientele base, and expand into Thailand, Hong Kong, and Japan by Q4 this year.
According to the press release, data estimates that Asia-Pacific’s (APAC) ecommerce sales grew 31.1% in 2017 to S$1.349 trillion, with the logisitics market’s support of the region’s ecommerce transactions forecasted to hit S$701 billion by 2022.
The 3 markets that Park N Parcel are looking at contribute to 18% (S$127.4 billion) of the forecasted APAC ecommerce transaction figure.
Leveraging on the Bangkok Immersion Programme organised by Enterprise Singapore, the team will be heading to the Thai capital at the end of April with 7 other startups.
Shared Cheong, “The programme will help Singapore startups expand locally and connect us to Thai conglomerates.”
Bangkok, Thailand will also be the first overseas market Park N Parcel is moving into, and they plan to work with local parcel providers such as Box24 to spread the word of their brand.
Working With B2C And C2C Marketplaces – Carousell, AirFrov, Easyparcel, SGShop
Last June, we saw Park N Parcel collaborating with C2C marketplace Carousell, also marking the first time that the latter has worked with a logistics partner.
During the 6-week long partnership, buyers could ‘Park’ the parcels they bought from sellers on Carousell at their neighbours’ homes – eliminating the long-standing issues of lost parcels and the trouble of needing to head down to post offices to collect deliveries.
Co-founder and COO Erik Cheong also told us then that they were “discussing partnership plans with companies like Playe, an online retailer, and logistics companies such as Qourier, Gogovan, Roadbull and Aramex”.
We hope these potential collaborations can boost the traction of the company and make our operation more efficient.
The recent funding press release also touched on such collaborations, stating that the funding will be aiding the startup “in helping online B2C and C2C marketplaces grow, while delivering great service levels, lowest cost and reach to the consumers.”
To commemorate the partnership with Carousell, a one-day free delivery promotion will be extended to all Carousell’s users in the month of May.
Commenting on the promotion, Winnie Khoo General Manager for Singapore, Carousell said, “Park N Parcel provides a unique, cost-friendly logistics solution for our users beyond the usual post-box and post office delivery.”
Added Cheong, “Our upcoming promotion with Carousell is an example of how Park N Parcel seeks to benefit the online community marketplace, by providing an on-demand concierge service with affordable delivery options.”
“As we continue to work with our esteemed partners to grow their clientele base, we want to tap into the logistically underserved parts of the region and expand into both the B2C and C2C segment.”
On top of this, they are also collaborating with AirFrov, Easyparcel, and SGshop “with website API integration as well as cross marketing campaigns to build awareness and usage”.
We will be expanding our Parker Network from 1,500 to 5,000 within the next few years.
“There will be more API integration implemented on major ecommerce platforms as well.”
