'World class' shipment system available to online retail SMMEs

Online retailers –

particularly small

and medium-sized

companies – have

been able to cut their courier

distribution costs by 40% since

using Parcelninja’s services,

according to managing

director Justin Drennan.

“Ecommerce is growing in

South Africa, and Parcelninja

is there to assist online

shopping companies by

removing the most expensive

and time-consuming parts of

the business – warehousing

and distribution costs – giving

them the benefit of a largescale

ecommerce operation

at a much lower cost,” said

Drennan.

He told FTW that the

company had delivered on

average about 10 000 parcels

per month last year. “This year,

to date, it has grown to an

average of 55 000 to 60 000

parcels,” Drennan said.

The Gauteng-based

company stores goods in a

fully automated, paperless

warehouse and distributes

them to individuals located at

any destination in the country

using the cheapest real-time

courier quote.

“So, for example, if a small

pharmacy in Durban requests

three boxes of a specific

product for an overnight

delivery to their store, we

would source the courier with

that day’s cheapest quote

for overnight end-end-end

deliveries.”

He pointed out that

Parcelninja sourced the

cheapest courier quote in

real-time, thus ensuring the

client always got the most costeffective

quote, even though the

service providers might differ

from day to day or even hour

to hour. “We therefore build

agility into their businesses as

well,” Drennan added.

According to him, the

warehouse management

system integrates into existing

e-commerce engines and offers

smart product warehousing,

picking and packing as well as

continuous real-time reporting,

giving the online retailers

ongoing feedback on their

deliveries.

Parcelninja has also recently

expanded its offering to

include regular retail stores.

“Our research has shown that

very often when a customer is

looking for an item and asks a

store to order it for them, they

seldom return to collect the

ordered item. But if the store

can have the item delivered

to the customer’s home or

workplace the next day, there’s

a far greater chance of closing

the deal,” said Drennan.

CAPTION

The Parcelninja warehouse is fully automated and the warehouse management system

integrates with ecommerce interfaces.