New Cape Town-based startup Wumdrop is all set to revolutionise South Africa’s courier industry. They are doing it by applying the same business model as Uber, a mobile app that connects passengers with taxi services.
The startup was co-founded by Cape Tonian media maverick Simon Hartley and his business partner Roy Mathieu Borole, in an attempt to address the issues they experienced with poor delivery of their online shopping.
Still in beta, WumDrop allows the user to hire out personal courier services through its app.
By registering on the app, the user can request a package pick up from anywhere (home, office, or store etc) and specify the drop-off location. The app also specifies the estimated time of delivery as well as costs.
Consumers are charged R7/km the driver travels, with a minimum R35 levied if the distance travelled is less than 5km.
Wumdrop Courier Unconventional billing methods
WumDrop itself does not own any vehicles, instead company will pick up the excess capacity of drivers who are already offering delivery services for larger courier services. The app will point them to leads generated from the WumDrop app.
On delivery, the courier driver will take a photo of the person to whom the package is being delivered to, or take a photo of the person’s business card.
According to WumDrop, photos are geolocated timestamps and gets sent as a receipt to the sender when they get billed.
Creating job opportunities
Currently WumDrop has 20 drivers in Cape Town that they are working closely with and training.
The company is also recruiting within Western Cape campuses for students are looking for extra cash and are willing to work irregular hours.
Drivers will be paid on a revenue-share model, with a 70/30 split with the driver gettin 70% of the revenue.
Wumdrop Courier Driving e-commerce
There are also plans to make Wumdrop services available on application programming interface to e-commerce stores, allowing them to plug into any online shop so that customers can select WumDrop as their delivery method for their online shopping.
Wumdrop aims to offer the service in Johannesburg before April of next year and wants to enter other African markets before the end of 2015.
