Picup and delivery in a contactless mode
As more people stay at home due to Covid-19, businesses are looking to increase their online efforts and ability to deliver goods to customers at home.
Antonio Bruni, CEO of technology and delivery company Picup Technologies spoke to Business Day about the shift to online delivery and efforts to reduce human contact in the process.
What is Picup and how does it work?
Picup provides logistic technology solutions for companies small, medium and large. Through our software, businesses are able to tap into our crowd source driver network, which is much like Uber. Drivers sign up to our platform, we do verification and background checks. Those that are cleared are registered on the platform and are ready to go. Drivers then download our app and are able to do deliveries on behalf of our customers. There are various types of deliveries. We have ad hoc deliveries where people need a parcel sent out urgently, on demand.
Then we have our enterprise clients that use our software like Ucook, The Food Cube or BuyFresh. We’ve just launched our mobile consumer app for Android.
The software integrates with third-party couriers as well for national deliveries. It’s a full shipping platform.
Some businesses, like Waltons [the stationery company], which manages its own delivery network, use our software to manage that. At times where orders exceed their capacity, they can pass some of that work on to Picup.
How has the coronavirus affected business of late?
With the coronavirus, apart from the companies that have been using our services for some time now, we’re getting a lot of requests from food companies especially.
So you’ve seen a spike in business because of coronavirus?
Yes. We’ve seen a spike of 30% to 40% in some of our customers and it’s great because we’re well prepared. We’ve got the network. Businesses are able to scale with the demand without having to employ their own drivers or buy more vehicles.
There’s a drive towards online platforms. We have an e-commerce plug-in that helps customers to set up an online store.
Picup has a contactless delivery process because of Covid-19. How does that work?
When a driver arrives at a customer’s home with a package, they’re encouraged to communicate with the customer to either put it on the floor or on a table.
The customer is not required to sign. Usually, customers sign on an electronic point-ofdelivery smart device or on the driver’s phone. So the driver prompts the customer about contactless deliveries, saying “you’re not required to sign. May I sign on your behalf”. They ask for a name and mark with a cross to confirm delivery.
At collection points, we’re working with our clients to ensure that orders are put in a certain section of the warehouse where drivers will collect.
We also provide a tracking link to customers while the driver is en route, so they can track the parcel and are well prepared when the delivery arrives.
With such a large network of drivers, how do you go about training and informing them about the virus?
There is active communication with the drivers through our mobile app where we’re able to send notifications and messages through instant messaging.
We’re constantly pushing out notices to our network every day to remind them to wash their hands before every delivery. When they log in, there’s a reminder about cleanliness.
There’s also an effort to deploy sanitising spray at our client’s collection points around the country. We’re also looking to provide masks to our driver network.
Are drivers concerned about making deliveries at this time?
No. We haven ’ t really had much concern. The fact that it ’ s contactless and they are in the vehicle by themselves — which is different to Uber or other services where there are passengers — puts them at ease.
We’ve seen a small surge in our driver network this week. Some drivers have been dormant over the last few months. We’ve sent messages encouraging our drivers to work during this period because there is an opportunity to earn money, which has been great.
Outside the coronavirus threat, how has the business been performing?
We have 15 staff, many of whom are working remotely at this time. We have close to 1,400 drivers between Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, with roughly 3,500 consumers and businesses on our platform.