Online shopping has brought a lot of comfort to our lives. Why go to the shop if the product can be delivered at your home? A side effect of this new way of shopping is that our streets are now often blocked by delivery vans. This not only creates frustration for many people, it leads to dangerous situations as well. Wuunder created an App with which we can make use of carrier services more efficiently. But is this really going to solve the problem?
Couriers deliver a serious traffic problem
Delivery vans clogging up the major cities cause some serious nuisance. A recently conducted survey shows the scale of the problem. More than half of the interviewed-citizens living in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven see at least one courier van a day. Nearly 20% of respondents think these couriers often create dangerous situations for everyone around them. At the same time the survey also showed that around 40% of respondents are part of the problem as they order packages online at least once a month. The survey was conducted on behalf of Wuunder, the startup that wants to make package delivery more efficient. Most of these courier vans are far from full. Using carriers and their courier services more efficiently means less vans blocking your street. This is where Wuunder comes in.
Wuunder as a central place for all packages
CEO Bart Takkenkamp: “What is usually happening today, is that companies hire a courier to deliver packages. As a consequence, several carriers deliver in the same streets, and at different moments. We work together with them and with the different couriers to make a more efficient process possible.” These couriers will pick-up all shipments at once, which should reduce the amount of vans going back and forth throughout the city. The receiver on the other hand will receive all his packages from one courier at the same time.
Big change or minor difference?
Sounds wuunderful, but how is the Wuunder App going to solve the problem of annoying and dangerous situations? The big companies with their own delivery services continue to deliver the usual way, and food delivery is also excluded from Wuunder. The target group is therefore limited to independent couriers, which make up for just a minor part of all the delivery services out there. So in the best possible outcome there will be a tiny decrease in delivery vans. It is doubtful whether this will prove to be enough to guarantee less traffic nuisance. Van Takkenkamp is convinced his startup will make a massive difference, mainly due to the increasing amount of non-food related shipments. This year for instance, consumers bought an even bigger percentage of Sinterklaas presents online than last year.
Wuunder for the whole neighborhood?
The efficiency that Wuunder wishes to create, works only when an entire neighborhood uses the App. Obviously, regular delivery services continue to exist alongside Wuunder. “In the ideal situation, as many people as possible will use our service. Only then we can make really efficient use of the couriers, and only then there is no longer the need for so many different couriers to drive through the streets all the time”. This is indeed an ideal situation, but one might wonder how realistic that goal is, especially at this early stage.
Alternative solutions
The Wuunder App might not really solve the problem of traffic nuisance, however their service could surely solve other problems. For a company sending many packages a day, and to different places, this startup could provide the perfect outcome. Likewise, Wuunder could indeed be an easy way to receive packages from different senders at once. But if this ambitious startup really wants to make delivery safer and more efficient, it may need to deliver a little more than this.
