Parcify
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Parcify
E-commerce
Public limited
company
Belgium
Predict where receivers are, geolocation, smart delivery
Patrick Leysen, Christophe van Olmen
Simon Landsheere
Jonas Coenen, Patrick Leysen
Summary
Parcify is here to provide peace of mind for your shopping and shipping experience. They're transforming the way they ship, deliver and pay for items in our mobile world, by enabling shoppers to get what they want, where they want it and at a time that suits them. Their magic combines a virtual address with mobile deliveries providing the most convenient shipping experience. They promise that you will never miss your parcel again.
Background
Parcify started on the 4th of January 2016, but they’ve been working at the concept since the beginning of 2015. They got the idea when one of the founders experienced a failed delivery. He had to stay home the entire day because an order was on its way, but when he left his house for 10 minutes, he missed his parcel and found a letter in his mailbox saying they would try another delivery the next day. He saw an opportunity solve a common problem and started Parcify.
They describe Parcify as a technology company that wants to deliver a better brand experience to customers who order and receive parcels. They want to provide people with peace of mind when ordering online.
Mission
Peace of mind for the end-consumer. Receiving what you want at a time time that suits you is a great feeling.
Vision
Perfectly predicting what the customer his/her favourite delivery option is.
Values
Integrity, honesty and transparency. Driven by entrepreneurship and hands-on mentality.
Business Models
The idea behind Parcify is that people can order anything online. Afterwards Parcify calculates what delivery option best suits you. By using their app, you can schedule and follow the delivery of your parcel. Customers can even let the couriers deliver their package while they are on the move, on the condition that they don’t exceed a speed limit of 12km/h.
Before customers can use the service of Parcify, they have to create a profile. Based on this profile, Parcify will figure out when they have the best chance to deliver the package. Thanks to the use of smart data, they prevent failed deliveries and save costs while optimizing the customer experience. Customers will pay an extra fee of €4,5 when they want to use Parcify’s service. They only have to pay this amount when the package is delivered. Clients can easily pay this with the payment function in their app. During the start-up, they’ve used the help of KBC Start It to support them. It’s an ideal platform for starters because they have an advisory board with people who have specific industry knowledge.
The advantage of Parcify’s concept is its scalability and they can easily roll out this concept in every market. A disadvantage is that everything is driven by technology driven. When a bug occurs, the software can easily be improved at any time so their product or service is never finished.
Growth
They have only been operational since the 4th of January 2016. First of all, they did a lot of research and had to develop the entire IT system. Since their launch growth has exceeded their expectations.
Customers
Every company that has a vision and values are potential customers for Parcify. That goes from online platforms to big brands but also individuals and small brands can use their service. Also end-consumers can use the service of Parcify, they can fill in the address of Parcify instead of their own address, and then they will be asked to pay an additional fee of €4,5. For the companies, they can contact Parcify themselves, but Parcify will also contact companies themselves. This is done by cold calling and leveraging their business network and connections.
Competitors
In the USA, there are some direct competitors, but the market is large enough for different companies. Today, Parcify is only active in Antwerp, but they plan a fast expansion into other high-density markets. Indirect competitors are all the logistic companies such as DHL, TNT, …
Conclusion
Parcify’s opportunity entails a big data set and a lot of knowledge about the end-consumer. They can create value and work more efficient keeping the percentage of failures lower. One of the biggest threats for Parcify is the privacy aspect. They are covered for Belgium at the moment but privacy law is different in every country, this is why they surrounded themselves with the right law firms in order to be able to service the entire European market.
The main thing they’ve learnt of their business model is that the acquisition of customers takes a lot of effort. It’s not easy to convert people to customers. One thing they want to say to future starters is that they have to make sure that they have some people who can guide them into the right direction. You need advisors and make sure that you get challenged every single day. This will keep you focussed and focus leads to success. Besides this, it’s also important that you test your product as fast as you can in a real environment to see what the bugs are and what you can improve.
Within 5 years, Parcify wants to be a sustainable and rentable company. For the moment, the service is only available in Antwerp, Belgium. But they want to be active in 4 other countries besides Belgium within 2 years.
Posted on 26/04/2016