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Shopopop, the new delivery standard

Article publié le 3 October 2022 par Johan RICAUT, Cofounder of SHOPOPOP

Startup

Meeting with Johan Ricaut, Cofounder of Shopopop, a startup created in 2016 that is revolutionising home delivery, with an innovative concept: collaborative delivery. Deliveries are made by a community of benevolent individuals who make use of their daily journeys.

Who are you? And where does your entrepreneurial spirit come from?

I am Johan Ricaut, a young entrepreneur from Nantes. I first studied at IDRAC, a business school in Nantes until 2015. Then, I quickly got into the “game” of the entrepreneurial adventure, by participating in a Startup creation contest at the age of 24.

How was your company born (context, observations, initial objectives, evolution…)

I met Antoine Cheul in 2015, through Prashant, one of our former teachers. This meeting allowed us to think about the development of a delivery concept discovered by Antoine, while he was working in India: lunch box delivery by Dabbawallahs.

Already at that time, the rise of new consumption models and modes in Europe, such as carpooling and food e-commerce, consolidated our vision of a collaborative home delivery project.

And together we launched Shopopop that same year.

Who are your customers? And what need are you addressing?

Our role is to act as an intermediary; we put the right people in touch with each other at the right time, which is Shopopop’s basic mission.

Shoppers, retailers and customers are brought together in a virtuous circle where each benefits from the other’s resources on a daily basis.

For shoppers, it allows them to make trips more profitable, do something for the planet by sharing trips, collect a tip, belong to a community, get out of the house and see people, feel useful, participate in the collaborative economy, and contribute to the local economy.

For large-scale food or specialised distribution, collaborative delivery allows customers to choose another delivery method, to offer them a virtuous service and to take part in the so-called collaborative economy.

For local retailers, delivering with Shopopop means developing a delivery service without logistical constraints to sell, develop their e-commerce activities and acquire new customers.

Finally, recipients have the opportunity to meet potential neighbours, encourage a more sustainable and collaborative delivery method, and benefit from a flexible and efficient service.

How can your solution improve the existing Supply Chain?

The Supply Chain is a complex and dense environment. Collaborative delivery, which could also be called co-delivery, provides a new solution to all the existing forms and models of delivery within the Supply Chain. With Shopopop, we bring a new form of consumption based on the collaborative economy. We want to offer a delivery experience that is concerned with:

guaranteeing local and responsible trade,
preserving a social model where the human element is paramount via our beautiful community of private deliverers,
preserving the environment as much as possible, by pooling routes already planned to make deliveries.

Where are you today in the development of your business? And what is your action plan?

Shopopop is a French company that currently operates in 8 European countries as a leader in this new home delivery model. The company’s ambition and plan is to strengthen this position by developing partnerships in the food and specialised retail environments. Co-delivery will become a new standard in the way consumers receive their purchases.

What is your opinion on quick commerce and dark stores?

Express delivery boomed with the Covid crisis and gave birth to zombie shops: mini-markets and restaurants without customers. Swarming haphazardly like self-service bicycles and scooters before them, dark kitchens and then dark stores have flourished in city centres, with the promise of delivery in less than 10 minutes for all needs that cannot wait, from a jar of pickles to shower gel.

The rise of these new services sometime hides a darker reality for delivery personnel and the environment. Not to mention the fact that, under the guise of basic necessities, they are imposing themselves as a standard of lazy consumption where the buyer no longer has to leave his or her sofa.

If home delivery has become a standard of daily life, the consumer must be aware that no solution is free or neutral, either from the point of view of the environment or of social rights. When it is not borne by a shopkeeper who has to give up his independence to survive, the cost weighs on the shoulders of a deliveryman who sacrifices his social protection or on those of the dynamism of a territory and the quality of the services available to its inhabitants.