Express parcels exchange launched

THREE former coffee importers are targeting the UK’s small businesses
with a new on-line exchange for express parcel delivery based in Edinburgh
and London. Firesend.com has signed up Lynx Express, Amtrak and Night Freight
to its e-marketplace, which will allow businesses to chose the best price for
the size and destination of their delivery and book without having an account.
Lawrence Evans, 34, David Henderson, 31, and Edward Charvet, 28, got the idea for the service while running their previous company, a coffee importer and distributor. Mr Evans, chief executive, said: “It was a small company, but
basically it taught us that there are a lot of lessons to be learned from
setting up a business. More importantly, we found out some of the
inefficiencies from a customer-facing standpoint.” Firesend believes the
UK market, currently valued at £4.3 billion, will grow more than 20 per cent to £5.5 billion in the next two years, taking parcel volumes to more than 800 million units. A major increase in parcel movements from the UK to Europe is
anticipated over the same period, growing from 900 million units to 1.4
billion. Firesend describes itself as an infomediary, or agent, which will
negotiate the best rates with couriers and charge a nominal 50p per item
fee for its service on top of the carriage charge. User payments will be
administered via direct debit or credit card. Mr Evans said the company
would concentrate on targeting small internet-based customers who lacked the logistical infrastructure of larger rivals. “Imagine setting up a business today and overnight you get access to a delivery service that normally is only available via a big company structure that’s taken years and large amounts of time to engender,” Mr Evans said.
“Essentially we are passing on the economies of scale and offering the
leverage that the big businesses get. There are something like 3.5 million
small to medium-sized businesses in the UK. Our focus is going to be the
e-tailers or the e-businesses which are not getting a great deal at the
moment, so you could argue that there will be many more of these set up
with the advent of always-on internet access. Our market is already big at the
moment, but could grow to be vast.” Mr Evans said the service would also
benefit carriers by providing a new revenue stream, allowing them to make pricing changes during busy or quiet periods and use space capacity more effectively. Firesend.com, which is due to be launched mid-June, will employ ten
people at its headquarters in London’s Mayfair and another five staff at its
Edinburgh-based sales and marketing office. The company was set up last
November with £1.2 million funding from Speed Ventures, a Swedish venture capital firm which incubates early stage mobile internet businesses. Mr Evans said Firesend, unlike other dot-com companies, expected to make a profit within its first two years. It expects to handle “millions” of parcel movements and will add other carriers in due course. Mr Evans was previously an investment banker with Salomon Brothers. Mr Henderson, Firesend’s technology director, has a computer science degree from Brighton University and was latterly responsible for British Airways’s cargo management system. Mr Charvet, the operations director, studied business studies at Brighton and was previously information sources manager at the Financial Times Group. Lynx Express offers same-day, next day, in-night and international deliveries with no limit on consignment weight or size. Amtrak has a UK network of 120 depots and Nightfreight specialises in overnight freight and larger parcels.THE SCOTSMAN, 31st May 2000