If you’ve ever come home to a missed delivery notice on your door, you’re all too familiar with what may happen next: a long drive to the shipping company’s delivery facility to retrieve it. A new Toronto startup has the solution to your postal pain.
“We’ve both had bad situations where it came to online purchasing. There has to be a better way. That was the starting point.”
Boxsit came to life after Adam Johnston and his co-founding partner both had less than positive experiences when it came to having items shipped to their homes. “We’ve both had bad situations where it came to online purchasing,” said Johnston. “There has to be a better way. What if we were the conduit between the retailer and the end purchaser, and become that virtual concierge for them? That was the starting point for developing the idea for Boxsit.”
The process for using Boxsit to ship any online purchase is similar to how one would ship a product bought on Amazon, Frank and Oak or Best Buy – with a simple twist. The purchaser specifies the Boxsit HQ as their shipping address and once the package arrives, the customer receives a notification the package has arrived. From there, the customer schedules the delivery. “Eventually, we’d like to partner with a Shopify and have this button on their website where the user can have their purchases shipped directly to us,” said Johnston.
As the economy around moving people and goods begins to coalesce and take shape, scaling for growth turns into a must-have, instead of a nice-to-have. “The biggest challenge has been figuring out the IT,” explained Johnston. “The consumer wants to experience a very seamless process, from ordering, tracking and receiving. Having the IT set up in a way that is very dynamic and can be adjusted to the needs of the consumer, that’s our biggest challenge. We have to be very diligent in how we set that up.”
Trust is also a challenge, particularly when comparing a little-known shipping logistics company to globally-renowned organization such as FedEx or Purolator. “It all boils down to customer service,” said Johnston. “As we get our name out there and start developing that trust with our consumers, we have to handle everything with care, educate the consumer on the process, as well as making sure they know we’re an insured company. Once they have a comfort level that we’ve done our homework, it grows from there.” Boxsit has a $2 million liability insurance policy that covers the products they deliver, as well as the driver itself.
“We want to change the way the world shops online,” said Johnston. “There is a hole in the way that an online purchaser wants to buy. We feel that we can fill that hole for them. There is that need to have that personal service: your product, when you want it, where you want it, how you want it. Those things are the most exciting thing about this business.”
Boxsit is currently in development and will be launching on August 1st, with service limited to Toronto at first, and expanding to the GTA later on. Those interested can sign up to get notified when they’ve launched.
