Cairo-based delivery aggregator Voo launches a pick-up point service with 50 points across Egypt

Voo, a Cairo-based delivery aggregator that offers shipping solutions to small and medium-sized ecommerce businesses in Egypt through its network of delivery partners (that also includes big courier companies like Aramex and Fetchr) has launched a pick-up point service for last-mile delivery, the startup told MENAbytes today.

The courier companies esp. the big ones normally don’t work with small and medium-sized businesses due to their low volumes and that’s where Voo helps them. The startup offers delivery solutions to any ecommerce business that has a monthly volume as low as 50 orders a month, allowing them to integrate its service in their ecommerce platforms through Voo’s API.

In addition to this, Voo (that had originally started as an on-demand delivery startup and later pivoted to become an aggregator) also follows-up directly with courier companies for everything related to orders to ensure that they’re delivered on time so the small ecommerce businesses that don’t have enough resources can focus entirely on their business without worrying about deliveries, Waleed Rashed, Voo’s founder and CEO told MENAbytes.

Speaking about the pick-up point service, Waleed said that they’re launching it with 50 points all over Egypt with the help of some partners and aim to take this number to 70  by the end of the year.

The service will give customers of all Voo merchants the option to select a pick-up point at the time of checkout instead of having the shipment delivered to them. The customers as an incentive to use the service are offered 25 percent discount on the delivery fee if they choose to have the order delivered to a pick-up point.

“The pick-up points as our pilot has proven will help increase the delivery success rates and result in better utilization of couriers who sometimes end up wasting a lot of their time in communicating with the recipient to arrange time of delivery,” explained Waleed.

The pick-up point service also allows users to pay cash for their delivery when they’re collecting their shipments.

Earlier this year Fodel (Forward Delivery), a Dubai-based startup that turns different types of stores into pick-up points for last-mile delivery, had raised $2.6 million in a Pre-Series A round. And this is the model that courier companies have been using for ages so there’s enough evidence that it works when the network of these points is large enough for users to pick-up their shipments without traveling a long distance.