Innovative parcel firm Shutl is rolling out its 90-minute delivery service for online shoppers tofour more British cities.
The internet start-up, which has so far offered fast deliveries in the Greater London area(within the M25 motorway boundary), today announced it will start offering the service to shoppersin and around Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Shutl, which launched in March 2010, connects retailers to local same-day courier companies,enabling delivery to both online and in-store customers within as little as 90 minutes (‘Shutl Now’) or within a one-hour delivery window on the same day or later (‘Shutl Later’). The servicenormally costs £4.95, although retailers often discount the service or even offer it free to winbusiness.
“This next phase of Shutl’s expansion will enable us to serve around 25 per cent of onlineshoppers in the UK,” commented Tom Allason, founder and CEO of Shutl. “Assuming everything goes toplan, we expect to launch across a further five cities in the coming weeks. Our goal is to havesufficient coverage by November to give high-street retailers a significant competitive edge overAmazon and the other pure-play e-tailers this Christmas.”
Shutl works by aggregating the capacity of local same-day couriers into a web service. Thisintegrates easily with retailers’ e-commerce platforms, allowing them to fulfil online orders fromlocal stores and enabling far quicker and more convenient delivery than is possible from acentralised warehouse. By keeping the delivery distance short it is also possible to offer theservice for a price that is comparable to standard 1-2 day delivery.
Initially the service will be offered to the new geographies through leading fashion brandsKaren Millen, Oasis, Coast and Warehouse. Other major high street names are expected to follow suitshortly. The company’s major customers include Argos, Aurora Fashions, B&Q Tradepoint, KarenMillen and Laithwaites Wine.
Shutl received nearly £1 million in venture capital in 2009 and 2010 to launch the business.In May 2011, it gained a further £650,000 in funding from Hummingbird Ventures and an unnamed majorEuropean postal group to build a sales team, expand its in-house software development team andexplore international opportunities. The postal group is working with Shutl to look at possibleareas of cooperation.
