Time wasted on shipping has long been a silent killer for e-commerce businesses. London-based logistics startup Weengs‘ fulfilment service claims to save its retailers an average of four hours per day, getting online orders to customers reliably and efficiently.
The startup has just secured €7.5 million in Series A funding in a round led by venture capital firm Oxford Capital, with participation from existing investors including Local Globe, Cherry Ventures and Venture Friends.
Weengs supports retailers who are seizing the opportunity presented by the growth of e-commerce, by providing a ship-from-store logistics solution. Weengs collects orders daily from retailers’ stores, professionally packs them back at its warehouse, and ships them directly to customers.
Weengs can pack and ship a broad range of products all over the world – everything from plants to musical instruments and everyday items, such as cosmetics and electronics. Weengs has partnerships with a range of carriers and uses smart algorithms to ensure the best delivery experience for the end customer.
“The future is in ecommerce and the logistics problem was holding retail business owners back,” said co-founder and CEO of Weengs, Pier Ronzi. “We provide a seamless experience that increases consumer confidence to buy from anyone.”
Weengs has grown more than 10x in the last 18 months and now has about 400 retailers as customers, and has fulfilled more than 500,000 online orders to date.
The startup is solving a huge problem for a growing market; it is expected that 18% of all UK retail purchases will occur online this year, and by 2040, it is thought that 95% of purchases will be facilitated by e-commerce. Retailers are responding to the rise in online orders by moving to a ship-from-store solution. Ship-from-store allows retailers to be more agile and respond to the growing demand from consumers for a seamless online and offline experience. Ship-from-store also saves retailers time, improves inventory optimization and increases sales and profitability.
To improve its service offering, Weengs is investing heavily in automated operations in its new warehouse, which is five times the size of its previous one. The startup is also building a data integration solution with retailers to optimise their fulfilment needs, such as delivery speed, packing customisation and matching with the best last mile carrier. Soon, Weengs will be able to offer full bespoke packing automation through machinery and proprietary software, which will enable the startup to fulfil more than 15,000 orders per day. Weengs will also be able to expand their geographical coverage outside of London to the rest of the UK, which has the third largest e-commerce market in the world.
“Weengs logistics service combines both tech and operational innovation to transform packaging and posting customer orders for retailers from a messy back-room task to a scalable third-party service,” said William Orde, a partner at Oxford Capital, who is joining the board. “We’re excited by the leverage Weengs service gives to small retailers as they move online and to back Pier and the team as they disrupt this space.”
