Amazon’s fast, free Prime shipping is central to the online retailer’s appeal. Now, a retail tech startup is giving smaller sellers and digitally native brands a chance to get into the quick delivery game—and the hope of breaking off a piece of Amazon’s market share.
Deliverr provides fulfillment solutions for brands looking to square up with the retail giant using fast, free shipping. Founded just a year ago, the company, which also partners with Walmart on its two-day free shipping, Ebay on its guaranteed delivery, and seller-fulfilled Prime shipping for Amazon, has already ramped up its capacity, fulfilling thousands of orders daily.
The platform promises a 95 percent on-time delivery service level agreement, backed up by a $5 voucher for consumers who don’t receive their goods on time.
This week, Deliverr announced that it had received the hefty sum of $23 million in new Series B funding, bringing its overall total investments to $30 million. The round was led by GLP, a global investment manager that specializes in logistics and related technologies.
This recent windfall will help the company to scale its team and operations across North America, launch its program across new sales channels, and build out more service features, Deliverr said in a statement.
And the company has finally fine-tuned its fulfillment network to provide two-day delivery, helping smaller brands and retailers provide a similar experience to Amazon’s Prime shipping.
“Today, we’re putting the power of our fulfillment into the hands of any merchant to leverage for their own website, launching a two-day delivery program for Shopify stores,” the company said.
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While Deliverr touted the Shopify platform as one of the most widely used e-commerce solutions for online merchants, the company is working to expand its services to accommodate sellers using other providers as well.
Concurrent with the two-day shipping rollout, Deliverr will also be working to support next-day shipping in certain eligible areas.
A flat-rate model offers sellers a pre-designated price on two-day or next-day shipping, regardless of where items are being sent. Deliverr stated that there will be no added cost to sellers who wish to take advantage of next-day shipping option where it is available—they will simply pay the two-day shipping rate.
“Two-day shipping has become the new norm, but very few retailers can meet this demand. With Deliverr, we’ve created a way for retailers to scale their businesses, meet customer needs and provide the fast, free delivery that shoppers expect,” said Michael Krakaris, co-founder of Deliverr.
To use the service, shoppers simply select the Deliverr fulfillment option at checkout.
The company said testing of its on-site badge system—which indicates the seller’s ability to provide fast, free shipping—has indicated a significant lift in conversions. Some merchants have reported sales growth of more than 30 percent after implementing Deliverr’s services and using its badges on their sites.