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Aussie courier innovator’s promise to zoom to you faster
By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>
STEVE ORENSTEIN wanted to reshape the delivery and courier industry.
So he created Zoom2U which enables private drivers to become courier. It’s a business that competes with Uber.
Orenstein said the great differentiator is that customers actually get to know who the driver is. 
“We’re a market place connecting the customer to the driver so you’re building a relationship between the two parties and the ability to be able to communicate with that driver,” Mr Orenstein told Talking Business.
He said the technology layer that sits over the top allows the customer to see who the driver is and when that driver is actually arriving – and seeing that on the map.
He said Zoom2U was created to fill a gap in the courier and delivery service industry.
“When I started the business, I went through the experience of placing a delivery online, never knowing when the courier was actually arriving and so from that, I thought, can I build an experience that’s much better for the consumer and knowing when that delivery is actually occurring and using a lot of technology to do that,” Mr Orenstein said.
“So what we’re fulfilling is allowing e-commerce and retail businesses to have something delivered on the same day but also being able to see the live location of that drive actually arriving,”
Zoom2U will send consumers a text message enabling them to a link showing the live location of the driver, the estimated arrival time and even the ability to call the driver.
The business, which started in 2014, is used by consumers and SMEs and brands like Nespresso.
The other differentiator for Zoom2U is that it is so easy for drivers to sign up to the platform. It is completely flexible. 
”Drivers have the ability to use their existing vehicle so it’s quite easy for us to scale up,” Mr Orenstein said. “Drivers choose when they’re going to work, which bookings they actually take or whether they deliver for five hours in a day, or two hours, or the whole week.
“They have complete flexibility in being able to do that. Having the ability to be so flexible gives the ability for many drivers to sign up.”
Zoom2U also has apps for business.
One is called Locate2U which has all the technology of Zoom2U.
“That’s designed for any business that manages their own fleet of drivers,” Mr Orenstein said.
“The Locate2U app takes all their bookings for the day, optimises their route, builds them into runs for drivers and provides that same live tracking experience for the customer,” he said.
“So rather than saying we can deliver it today, we can deliver it to a 15 minute time window and provides SMS alerts for those customers.”
Zoom2U also acquired an app called Local Delivery which sits on the Shopify e-commerce platform.
Mr Orenstein said retailers have been taking to it because they now know people want things delivered faster.
“What that allows you to do is, if you’re a Shopify e-commerce owner, and you’re wanting to provide local delivery to your customers, you need to ask the customer when you want that product delivered and here are the available time windows to do that,” he said.
Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.
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