Luxembourg-based international shipping platform Eurosender has simplified shipping across European borders so much that its website attracts over 1 million monthly visitors.
While Eurosender’s platform targets small to midsize shippers, a few of its website visitors have made some pretty outlandish requests, like the shipping of a live human, a wheelbarrow or the sperm of a bull.
Since its founding in 2014 by Jan Štefe and Tim Potočnik, Eurosender has provided instant rates for door-to-door deliveries within Europe. In 2018, Eurosender landed a major investment from POST Luxembourg — the country’s biggest mail company — and it boasts partnerships with DHL and DPD.
“We want small and medium-sized businesses to take logistics to the next level,” said Potočnik in a recent interview with FreightWaves. “We offer them one digital logistics solution for their entire shipping needs, so in one dashboard, they can book the shipping of parcel, express parcel, dry van, LTL or FTL. Using the dashboard as a control tower, they can track all the orders and expenses, and consolidate invoicing. It also reduces the costs.”
The Eurosender team has grown to 120 people, while its platform now serves 50,000 small to medium-size shippers seeking to navigate the historically fragmented and tech-averse European market. Its significant network of carriers removes the burden of procurement and contracting from the shipper. For the carriers, Eurosender provides a network of customers that historical methods wouldn’t have been able to access.
“We were the first in Europe able to use artificial intelligence to reliably quote, van, LTL and FTL rates instantly,” said Štefe. “So when people enter a ZIP code to ZIP code, we are able to predict what the price is going to be and offer it to our customer in a matter of one second.”
Eurosender is active in over 30 European countries that might speak one of 24 languages and require various customs processes. While more and more Europeans speak English as a second language, English messaging may only cover 10% of Eurosender’s audience directly. For a global digital internet company, reaching shippers at the local level is a challenge — but an important one to overcome.
“Localization is a challenge not only in regards to message translation, but also adapting to local customs and ways of doing business,” said Štefe. “Ordering a truck in Poland is completely different than shipping something in Greece or Portugal. Deciding to have your global business local means you have people from all the countries trained and ready to work locally with customers to create relevant marketing content in the right languages.”
Like all constituents across the global supply chain this past year, Eurosender had to change some operational processes and weather capacity issues, but Štefe called COVID-19 a “supercharger” for the sales of any company with a digital agenda in logistics. Before COVID-19, carriers were more leery of using a digital platform, but the co-founders said that all the carriers using Eurosender see clear benefits.
“You often see a very complex way of organizing logistic activities,” said Štefe. “We have made complicated shipping situations straightforward by asking the right questions at the right time to the right people. We’re not a fan of sending you a 400-page order form to ship something. We see what needs to be asked in order to execute transportation in a safe and professional way.”
While the main focus in terms of customer base will remain Europe, Eurosender has hopes to expand operations into North America.
