Have you ever thought that even a mobile app can be used for shipping cost comparison? Spaceship, a Hong Kong-based global courier reservation platform, integrates the information of different courier services to make couriering as convenient as booking a hotel room, so it is in a way the “Trivago of courier services”.
Be a step ahead of others with hassle-free shipping
“People actually don’t know much about logistics,” said Chilam Lam, CEO and co-founder of Spaceship, bluntly. “The idea of our courier platform is to simplify the complicated shipping process so that it can be completed with a mobile phone, bringing a new experience to the public.”
On the Spaceship app, the quotes and shipping times from various courier companies will be displayed promptly after the user has entered the destination, category of the items, and size and weight of the parcel. The user just needs to choose the desired service and the items will be picked up after that. No wonder it has quickly made a name for itself in the logistics industry in just over two years since its launch.
A fresh beginning with narrower focus after starting badly
Looking back, it has not been smooth sailing in getting the business off the ground. Lam saw the potential of Japanese products and wanted to promote them to the European and American markets, so he asked Stanley Wong, another co-founder of Spaceship, to start a business together. Unfortunately, the Japanese have to take a long time before adopting a new system as they are used to warming up slowly to new stuff, but a start-up cannot afford to wait. “At that time, we only had about two months of working capital remaining, so it was either closing down or finding another way out.”
Caught in such a sink-or-swim situation, they re-examined the entire company and found that logistics was actually the most indispensable p a r t o f e-commerc e , so they resolutely decided to focus on only the logistics business. “After months of painstaking transformation, Spaceship finally introduced an initial version in mid-2019, and has grown rapidly since then.”
Winning through delivery of moon cakes, soup dumplings and Calbee chips
Spaceship currently works with several major courier companies, but negotiating those partnerships had required a lot of effort. “We found that traditional courier companies focus more on large business customers and ignore individual customers and SMEs, so we used this as an entry point to successfully convince many companies to form partnerships with us.”
Regarding items to be couriered, Lam said that they include personal items, clothes, food, etc. for individual customers, and fashion, toys, electronic products, etc. for business customers. The company also collaborates with businesses from time to time to launch delivery of moon cakes, Hong Kong-style soup dumplings, Calbee potato chips, etc., so that overseas relatives and friends can also savour the flavours of Hong Kong. “In the past, people used to find sending items a hassle, but we believe that technology can not only simplify cumbersome processes, but also bring people closer together.”
Spaceship has also been successful in going beyond Hong Kong and expanded its business footprint into Taiwan in March this year. Looking to replicating the success they have had in Hong Kong, Lam said that expanding into Taiwan is a pilot project. If all goes well, they will continue to tap into different markets in the future with the aim of truly establishing a global presence by roaming across the world, just like a spaceship.
