Making sure the parcel gets to its post

Wexford start-up company Scurri.com has taken an innovative high-tech approach to managing parcel delivery and is preparing to take on the UK market.

Company founder Rory O’Connor set up Scurri.com in 2011 to use the power of the internet to provide consumers with competitively priced deliveries by utilising the excess capacity of transport companies. Within a year Scurri.com has switched focus to the e-commerce market and is now in discussions with several large and medium-sized online retailers in the UK.

“Our aim is to use technology to make parcel delivery simple — we have developed technology which links e-commerce merchants with delivery companies,” Mr O’Connor says. Scurri.com is the only company in Ireland or the UK offering this service, explains Mr O’Connor Employing a staff of five, Scurri.com plans to increase this to nine by 2014 and aims by 2015 to be servicing markets in the UK, Australia and New Zealand and facilitating the delivery of 10 million parcels a year.

An MBA who had previously worked with Waterford Crystal, Mr O’Connor was running a consultancy firm in Wexford in 2009, when he got a business idea while buying a new set of alloys for his car.

“I was shocked at the price at the local dealers. I thought I could buy them cheaper and found them second hand in Northern Ireland for less. I looked for a transport company to deliver them but found this was more expensive than the wheels. I looked for a company with excess capacity and found a small company doing a weekly run in the area, which was willing to deliver them for €30,’’ He saw an opportunity to create a website which would allow transport companies to quote for parcel deliveries required by consumers. Still running his consultancy business, he got some LEADER funding in 2010 and hired a developer to design a website.

In the initial stages he approached small and medium-sized transport companies, signing up 50 or 60 of them to provide quotes on the new site. “The small local companies are the ones with excess capacity which in the current climate, were hungry for business.”

Getting a positive response to the prototype website from both transport service companies and consumers, Mr O’Connor saw an opportunity to develop a sustainable business and started work on enhancing the website and setting up a company. Participating in the South East Enterprise Platform Programme (SEEPP) for graduate start-ups, he later took part in Enterprise Ireland’s iGap accelerator programme.

“We launched our new website in Jan 2011 and took on one full-time employee,’’ says Mr O’Connor explaining that Eugene Crehan, programme manager of SEEPP, also became a director of the new company which is located at Duncannon.

By the middle of last year 600 delivery companies were quoting for parcel deliveries on Scurri.com. “Customer numbers were growing and we were getting 10,000 visitors to the site a month,’’

Although the initial aim was to provide consumers with cheaper deliveries by utilising excess capacity, Mr O’Connor found the biggest demand was coming from e-commerce merchants and the company began servicing online retailers and providing delivery services for companies such as Donedeal.ie. In developing technology which connects delivery companies with the companies sending the deliveries, Scurri.com had inadvertently found a gap in the market.

“Our technology has now become our key selling point. Our platform gives companies online management tools that allows them to access and manage the most suitable and cost-effective transport providers. Customers can connect with transport companies in order to track delivery.”

Gearing up for a change in focus, Scurri raised €600,000 in seed funding from Enterprise Ireland and private investors earlier this year to further develop its technology and to fund expansion into the UK.

The company in now in discussions with a number of medium-sized and large e-commerce merchants in the UK and is planning to launch a new enhanced website early next year.

Mr O’Connor says Scurri.com is now in advanced negotiations with one large online retailer and is optimistic that this will lead to a significant boost for business.