Package theft is becoming an all too common occurrence in the U.S.
A 2017 survey by Xfinity Home found that one-third of Americans have experienced package theft and the Denver Police Department has seen incidents rise every year since 2015.
Whether it’s during the holiday season, or just a random day over the summer, porch pirates are out there.
When he moved from Israel to the U.S. about four years ago to attend Harvard Business School, Itamar Zur ran into his own issues with deliveries.
He wasn’t able to get packages delivered to his door and many were being stolen from his building’s common room. Inspired by Uber’s flexible labor pool model, Zur set out to solve the problem of package theft by reimagining the delivery model.
In 2016, Zur and classmates from Harvard launched Veho, a delivery company using crowdsourced drivers who deliver next day and offer app-based communication.
What he found in researching the delivery process is that the more visibility and control you give to the end customers, the better the delivery process is.
“We’re a fast delivery service that is highly focused on an amazing experience for the customer and the driver,” Zur told Colorado Inno.
With Boulder’s Veho, vetted delivery drivers pick up 20 to 30 packages from a warehouse in the morning and are given a delivery route that specifies instructions for individual deliveries. From there, drivers can contact the customers directly, giving them two-hour delivery windows and confirming the exact time and location of drop-off.
Don’t want it left in an apartment lobby? Customers can text their Veho driver to specify exactly where to leave it.
Much like Uber, Veho has a flexible labor pool of drivers to deliver its packages. Drivers book and drive whenever it works for them, picking up packages from Veho’s storage space and delivering them with two- to eight-hour routes.
After launching in 2016, Veho is operating in Denver, Chicago and Dallas, with plans for further expansion in the near future.
The company works with e-commerce companies and brick-and-mortar establishments to provide delivery services in specific markets. Zur said the customer experience and cost savings differentiate Veho from competitors.
“We’re not selling to end consumers, the person who decides is an e-commerce company and they’ll choose us if we’re cheaper,” he said. “Using a flexible labor pool, better technology and operational efficiencies, the cost of running this operation is significantly lower.”
Zur also stressed that Veho isn’t competing with Amazon, rather it’s trying to be a customer-focused alternative to Amazon’s competitors.
Veho has full-time employees on the ground in each of its markets and Zur said this hyper-local focus is what separates the company from established shipping giants.
“Our model is to serve different regions, unlike a company like UPS and FedEx, they can fly,” he said. “We don’t have airplanes, so we can’t cover the whole country.”
Zur said Veho’s expansion will be strategic, opening in markets close to those it is already in. With hubs in Chicago and Dallas, Veho will look at Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Austin and Houston as potential fits.
“We’re not trying to maximize the cities we’re in right now, we’re trying to make the model work,” he said. “This is not the time to run ultra-fast, it’s the time to get it right.”
The company has raised around $1 million to this point and will raise a larger round in the near future that will allow it to expand the product and grow the team, Zur said.
Veho also graduated from Techstars Boulder earlier this year, furthering its mission to fix the package delivery model.
“E-commerce or brick-and-mortar businesses all rely on carriers and there is not enough emphasis on the customer experience,” he said.
