It's no secret that carpooling has been on the rise for several years! Whether they are passengers or drivers, 42% French people have already experienced the practice. But do you know the variant of parcel carpooling? Meeting with Johan RICAUT, co-founder of Shopopop.
Shopopop, the “Blablacar of delivery”
Shopopop is a community platform for short-distance grocery and parcel delivery, carried out by individuals for individuals.
Founded in 2016 by Johan RICAUT and Antoine CHEUL, the startup Shopopop is currently established in more than 50 cities in France.
What does this solution consist of?
After a quick registration on the Shopopop application, an individual has access to all the orders to be delivered within their area. If he is available, he can become a delivery person “or Shopper” for the duration of an errand. He then agrees to take charge of another individual's order, collect it from the store and drop it off at the customer's home in exchange for financial compensation. Johan RICAUT explains: “We wanted to rely on the multitude of daily flows and allow users, as with traditional carpooling, to amortize the cost of their trips, while maintaining a collaborative spirit”. And the success is there, since September 2017 more than 55,000 deliveries have been made. The community platform currently has between 10,000 and 15,000 active Shoppers and makes several thousand deliveries each month.
A virality which can be explained by the startup model. Far from only offering a new delivery solution to partner stores and customers, the Shopopop service is a real boon for individuals who provide deliveries: “Via the application, Shoppers recover between 5 and 7.5 euros per delivery. The inhabitants of the cities where we are established quickly integrated the application into their daily uses” adds Johan RICAUT. In fact, all residents, provided they are adults, can become Shoppers and cover their travel costs: “Some want to take advantage of their daily trips, others agree to make a delivery when they go to pick up their own order. Still others take advantage of their staggered schedules or their free time. Almost everyone has an interest in it.” explains the co-founder.
However, Johan RICAUT assures us, Shopopop is not intended to become a main source of income for delivery people: “We wish to remain with a service proposition based on mutual assistance between individuals and will not call on independents or professionals to ensure deliveries. The use of Shoppers remains moderate and has no professional or commercial purpose.”
Quality service
And to reassure potential customers who would hesitate to entrust their order to a stranger, Shopopop has not neglected the security option for its delivery solution: “The identity of each user is verified and the platform has insurance with AXA. Similarly, and using the example of carpooling platforms, the Shopper is given a satisfaction rating based on the quality of the delivery: on-time delivery, friendliness, etc. Finally, to guarantee the cold chain we offer adapted delivery times and recommend the use of TopCryo tablets from the company Cryolog allowing temperature monitoring”.
After a few months of testing, Johan RICAUT explains to us that he now wants to expand the services by offering other delivery systems and announces that he is finalizing a stock pooling solution between stores with the Eram brand: “We hope to be able to offer this service quickly to as many stores in the network as possible and we are also starting to address new specialized retail markets”.
With its viral collaborative solution, its interface dedicated to stores, its application for Shoppers and above all a robust economic model (the secret of success!), Shopopop has managed to carve out a very good place for itself in the last mile market. With the opening in the coming months of delivery to Marseille or Strasbourg, the startup is beginning a development phase throughout France...
That's all we wish them and the team SprintProject will follow this promising development very closely…
