INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
When Amazon rolled out its membership-based two-day shipping service in 2005, e-commerce and customer expectations around fulfillment speed
changed forever.Today, more than 100 million people use Amazon Prime
That means, 100 million people are fully accustomed to two-day shipping and if they can&t have it, they shop elsewhere
As The Wall Street Journal Christopher Mims recently put it: &Alongside life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you can now add another
inalienable right: two-day shipping on practically everything.&Only recently have Amazon competitors begun to offer similar fast delivery
About two years ago, Walmart launched its own free two-day delivery service for its owned-inventory; eBay followed suit, establishing a
three-day or less delivery guaranteedoption for shoppers in March 2017.To power these Prime-like delivery options, Walmart, eBay andthe
Canadian e-commerce business Shopify are relyingon a little upstart.One-year-old Deliverr helps businesses offer rapid delivery experiences
to theircustomers.Today, the company is announcing a $7.1 million Series A led by Joe Lonsdale 8VC, with participation from Zola
founderShan-Lyn Ma, Flexport chief executive officer Ryan Peterson and others.The San Francisco-based startup uses machine learning and
predictive intelligence to determine which of its warehouses to store its client goods.Walmart launches free, 2-day shipping without a
membership on purchases of $35 or moreCurrently, Deliverr operates out of more than 10 warehouses in Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio
and New Jersey, among other states, thoughco-founder Michael Krakaris says that number isgrowing every week
Its customers typically store inventory in three to five different locations based on Deliverr predictive algorithms.Unlike Amazon, which
owns more than 75 fulfillment centers, Deliverr doesn&t ownits warehouses
Krakaris describes the company strategy as a sortof Uber for fulfillment.&Uber didn&t change the physical infrastructure of cars
They didn&t build their own taxis
What they did was create software that could connect excess capacity drivers,& Krakaris told TechCrunch
&Most warehouses aren&t going to be full
We are going in and filling that extra space they wouldn&t otherwise fill.&One of the startup&stricks is to use brand-neutral packaging so
any and all marketplaces could theoretically power fulfillment throughDeliverr
Amazon, of course, sticks a Prime sticker on all its outgoing packages
And because Amazon fulfillment service is used by some eBay sellers,eBay items are known to show up at customers& homes in Amazon-branded
Not a great look for eBay.&You need an independent fulfillment service that can handle all these different fulfillment channels and be
neutral,& Krakaris said.Deliverr plans to use the investment to scale its team and ink partnerships with additional online retailers.
