Case 3: Flitsmeister Pickup

Flitsmeister Pickup is a new sharing P2P service which builds on the existing

Flitsmeister platform which was founded in 2010. Flitsmeister currently has 1,7 million users in the Netherlands and gained a lot of knowledge on traffic movements of automobiles. With this knowledge, they started developing a new sharing business model where traffic

movements are linked to demand for parcel transport using the free car space of cars. The existing Flitsmeister proposition offers real-time traffic information from speed camera to traffic jam and the developed core logic of the platform for this can now also be used for the new sharing service. Besides that, the simple reasoning is that when a car is driving from A to

37 B anyway it might as well be used to pick up a parcel which needs to basically travel the same route. The driver of the car can earn some money and reduce travel cost with it while zero additional carbon dioxide is emitted for the transport of the package. To measure whether their users and shopkeepers are actually interested in the concept they created a landing page on their website to inform on the new service with the possibility to register for candidates.

The response was huge and very positive from the beginning and reason for Flitsmeister to prepare the next step which is to run the end-to-end service for a restricted designated area in the Netherlands. At the moment of interviewing the managing director Jort de Vries,

Flitsmeister was at the verge of kicking off the pilot. The pilot is used to check for completeness and learn whether coverage is good enough and what market penetration is required to balance out demand and supply and run the service effectively. The initial plan was to run the pilot for a couple of months to then roll-out to the rest of the Netherlands and in the meantime further develop the platform for the service. However, due to Corona pandemic hitting the Netherlands (just like the rest of Europe and many places in the world) causing people to stay at home in isolation gave a sudden boost to on-line retail sales and with that a boost to parcels shipments. Flitsmeister reacted quickly by making the strategic

decision to launch the new propositions earlier for the whole of the Netherlands and not wait for a fully completed proposition. This means that shopkeepers can enrol via the site and via a call back by a Flitsmeister team, registration is completed. The users on the other hand can fully automated register via the website or the app to become a Bezorgmeister (free

translation: ‘delivery meister’) providing personal information such as name and address details and bank account details. When a shopkeeper has a package to be delivered, the demand is made known to the platform via the website. The platform registers the demand together with the location and then searches for Bezorgmeisters in the area of the location who will all receive a notification on their app. When the demand is accepted by one of the Bezorgmeisters on the mobile app, the platform will send a pickup code and address of the

38 parcel pickup location. The Bezorgmeister will pick up the package by identifying to the shopkeeper with the provided pickup code and enters the destination in the app. When sharing the route with the shopkeeper in the app, the package can be followed via track and trace by the shopkeeper and the receiver. At the moment of delivery a drop code also provided by the platform closes the transaction. Due to the premature launch the actual payment module is not yet available on the platform so the Bezorgmeister needs to send a payment request directly to the shopkeeper by him/herself without the interference of Flitsmeister Pickup. This procedure will change at the moment that the payment service will be made available for the Flitsmeister app and platform. The current proposition also launched without a delivery insurance

coverage. Flitsmeister will add that as soon as possible they say in the news media. The cloud platform together with the use of the app and website makes a rather complex process

transparent and easy to understand and use for the users. This proposition is targeted on a same-day-deliver for short distance up to around 20 to 30 kilometres. A second variant of the proposition will be launched later and targets on a long distance or on-trip delivery where packages need to be delivered further away and not on the same day. These deliveries are expected to be typically delivered by people who daily commute between home and work location. The platform is collecting lots of data which is used for analysis and creating new insight which may lead to new additional services through new combinations and

optimizations. A dedicated team of developers is continues working in iterations of 2-3 weeks on improvements or new functionalities of the platform. Requirements are composed by both Flitsmeister and stakeholders giving feedback. If possible third party cloud services are used and embedded into the platform solution and some developments are done by their parent company. A peer review system is not available yet and has definitely not the highest priority although the Flitsmeister proposition successfully uses a review and rating system. It is likely that this system will gradually be used for Flitsmeister Pickup at a certain moment. There is no policy to expel users from the platform. Next to financial and ecological value, value for

39 the community will also be created by through reduction of traffic movements. When this sharing proposition turn out to be successful, additional sharing services can be created such as carpooling or some kind of taxi service de Vries says.