Crowdshipping

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Crowdshipping, sometimes referred to as crowd logistics, [1] applies the concept of crowdsourcing to the personalized delivery of freight. Crowdshipping can be conceived as an example of people using social networking to behave collaboratively and share services and assets for the greater good of the community, as well as for their own personal benefit. [2]

Contents

Definitions

The United States Postal Service describes crowdshipping as a "new class of logistics, known as crowdshipping or crowdsourced delivery [that] doesn't require processing facilities or fleets of trucks, and can be scaled quickly and cheaply". [3]

History

2000s

The principle of peer delivery was first applied by a few online ventures in the early 2000s. In 2009, ordinary car drivers could register as "couriers" using the site Stuff2Send.com, and had an option to connect with the sender and arrange a fee in case their journeys coincided with parcel deliveries. [4] In the years after the Great Recession, startups including Zipments, mmMule, PiggyBee, Deliv, and Friendshippr were created based on the market's need to earn extra income. [5] [6] [7] [8]

2010s

The 2014 publication Issue in Focus by the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General raises concerns over the new innovation of crowdshipping in the brief titled "Using the 'Crowd' to Deliver Packages". [9] In this publication, the Office of the Inspector General describes crowdshipping as "a subset of the larger 'crowdsourcing' movement [which] involves the use of technology to marshal a large group of people to accomplish something". [10]

The same year, a collaboration between CIRREALT Interuniversity Research Center, Université Laval, and Canada Research Chair in Interconnected Business Engineering created a research paper titled Crowdsourcing Delivery: New interconnected business models to reinvent delivery, which was presented during the 1st International Physical Internet Conference. The research paper quotes Jeremy Rifkin's The Zero Marginal Cost Society, saying: "Crowdsourced delivery is an answer to the growing expectations of customers for faster, more personalized and cost-efficient delivery service. It exploits technological potential (geolocalization, mobile apps) and the social trend of sharing and collaboration." [11] [12] The report continues: "For two years, crowdsourced delivery has been bursting. Several start-ups have been launched and some have attracted millions in investment. Currently leading is Postmates and Deliv that have respectively acquired investments totaling more than 22 and 14 million US$." [11]

In 2016, The Owls Foundation published its annual Breakthrough from Innovation to Impact, Volume 1. The document covers the relevant topics of that year, including global logistics, with crowdshipping being one of the main sub-topics. Written by Alan McKinnon, professor of logistics at Kuehne Logistics University, the publication calls crowdshipping "its corollary in personal travel: encouraging passengers to use their spare carrying capacity on cars, bikes, buses and planes to carry parcels for other people." It further states that crowdshipping "has had an innocent start with a few cheerful websites, but it does raise serious questions about liability and security". [13]

In 2017, the Journal of Business Logistics published a research paper titled The Rise of Crowd Logistics: A New Way to Co‐Create Logistics Value, authored by Valentina Carbone, professor of supply chain and operations management at ESCP Europe; Aurélien Rouquet, professor of logistics and supply-chain management at NEOMA Business School & CRET-LOG; and Christine Roussat, assistant professor at Blaise Pascal University & CRET-LOG. The paper states: "Bearing in mind the dearth of research on this topic, our purpose is to develop an initial conceptual approach to these initiatives, that we term 'crowd logistics', meant as 'initiatives that tap into the logistical resources of the crowd to perform logistics services.' This article is structured in six sections. The first section reviews the (scarce) literature that relates to crowd logistics. The second section presents our methodology, which is based on the study of 57 cases of emergent crowd logistics initiatives. The third section highlights the main differences between crowd logistics and traditional business logistics." [14]

Subsets

Crowdshipping "can be grouped into four types depending on the nature of the logistics service they propose: crowd storage, crowd local delivery, crowd freight shipping, and crowd freight forwarding". [15]

Crowd storage

Crowd resources are mobilized through a web search engine that enables clients to geolocate storage spaces uploaded by the crowd. Most offerings are in large cities, where high real estate prices push traditional business storage space to the outskirts. [15]

Crowd local delivery

The provision of local delivery services relies on transport resources that the crowd has access to and makes use of, including individual logistics capabilities such as picking up goods, driving, and delivering. Transport resources can be vans, cars, scooters, bicycles, public transport, or even walking. Initiatives in this field operate using mobile applications, which enable peers to place delivery requests that are then fulfilled by other peers. [15] Examples include Jojo, [16] Deliv, and Zipments. [17]

Crowd freight shipping

In crowd freight shipping, the connections between drivers and users of the service are established through the same type of Internet platforms or mobile apps. This type of shipping system seems particularly suitable for oversized or non-standard items that cannot be sent by post because their unusual volume makes the use of standard services impractical or too expensive. [15] Cargomatic is an example. [18]

Crowd freight forwarding

Crowd freight forwarding initiatives operate using search engines that match clients' requests to travelers' offers with the same origin and destination. Potential users of the service can place ads that inform the crowd of their own shipping needs, while peers post their forthcoming travel itineraries. These initiatives are deployed around the world and may have global coverage, although most of them are specialized in some connections. [15] Examples of this are Sherpals and Grabr. [19]

There is also a less common subset of community-based platforms that link international buyers and local forwarders, allowing buyers to use the forwarder's address as the purchaser's destination. The forwarder can then re-send the goods to the buyer. Examples include Parcl.com [20] and Shippn. [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Postal Service</span> Independent agency of the U.S. federal government

The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U.S., including its insular areas and associated states. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. The USPS, as of 2021, has 516,636 career employees and 136,531 non-career employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FedEx</span> American freight and package delivery company

FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1973 until 2000. FedEx today is best known for its air delivery service, FedEx Express, which was one of the first major shipping companies to offer overnight delivery as a flagship service. Since then, FedEx also started FedEx Ground, FedEx Office, FedEx Supply Chain, FedEx Freight, and various other services across multiple subsidiaries, often meant to respond to its main competitor, UPS. The company is the fifth largest American-headquartered employer globally with 547,000 employees, and FedEx is also one of the top contractors of the US government and assists in the transport of some United States Postal Service packages through their Air Cargo Network contract.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Parcel Service</span> American package delivery company

United Parcel Service is an American multinational shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has grown to become a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest shipping couriers. UPS today is primarily known for its ground shipping services as well as the UPS Store, a retail chain which assists UPS shipments and provides tools for small businesses. UPS offers air shipping on an overnight or two-day basis and delivers to post office boxes through UPS Mail Innovations and UPS SurePost, two services that pass on packages to the United States Postal Service for last-mile delivery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Package delivery</span> Type of delivery service

Package delivery or parcel delivery is the delivery of shipping containers, parcels, or high value mail as single shipments. The service is provided by most postal systems, express mail, private courier companies, and less than truckload shipping carriers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cargo</span> Goods or produce transported

Freight consists of goods conveyed by water, air, or land, while cargo refers specifically to freight when conveyed via water or air. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facilities, including warehouses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delivery (commerce)</span> Process of transporting goods from a source location to a predefined destination

Delivery is the process of transporting goods from a source location to a predefined destination. Cargo is primarily delivered via roads and railroads on land, shipping lanes on the sea, and airline networks in the air. Certain types of goods may be delivered via specialized networks, such as pipelines for liquid goods, power grids for electrical power and computer networks such as the Internet or broadcast networks for electronic information. Car transport is a particular subgroup; a related variant is Autorack, which involves the transport of autos by railroads.

A freight rate is a price at which a certain cargo is delivered from one point to another. The price depends on the form of the cargo, the mode of transport, the weight of the cargo, and the distance to the delivery destination. Many shipping services, especially air carriers, use dimensional weight for calculating the price, which takes into account both weight and volume of the cargo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freight company</span> Companies that specialize in the moving of cargo from one place to another

Freight companies are companies that specialize in the moving of freight, or cargo, from one place to another. These companies are divided into several variant sections. For example, international freight forwarders ship goods internationally from country to country, and domestic freight forwarders, ship goods within a single country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crowdsourcing</span> Sourcing services or funds from a group

Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digital platforms to attract and divide work between participants to achieve a cumulative result. Crowdsourcing is not limited to online activity, however, and there are various historical examples of crowdsourcing. The word crowdsourcing is a portmanteau of "crowd" and "outsourcing". In contrast to outsourcing, crowdsourcing usually involves less specific and more public groups of participants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Last mile (transportation)</span> Last leg of the movement of people or goods from hubs

In supply chain management and transportation planning, the last mile or last kilometer is the last leg of a journey comprising the movement of passengers and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination. The concept of "last mile" was adopted from the telecommunications industry, which faced difficulty connecting individual homes to the main telecommunications network. Similarly, in supply chain management, last-mile describes the logistical challenges at the last phase of transportation getting people and packages from hubs to their final destinations.

Third-party logistics is an organization's long term commitment of outsourcing its distribution services to third-party logistics businesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jade Magnet</span>

Jade Magnet was an online Crowdsourcing platform for creative and marketing support services. It was founded in 2009 by Sitashwa Srivastava and Manik Kinra. The company is headquartered in Bangalore, India and has white label partnerships in Qatar as Mixilion and in Singapore as id8on.

Crowdsourcing software development or software crowdsourcing is an emerging area of software engineering. It is an open call for participation in any task of software development, including documentation, design, coding and testing. These tasks are normally conducted by either members of a software enterprise or people contracted by the enterprise. But in software crowdsourcing, all the tasks can be assigned to or are addressed by members of the general public. Individuals and teams may also participate in crowdsourcing contests.

Government crowdsourcing is a form of crowdsourcing employed by governments to better leverage their constituents' collective knowledge and experience. It has tended to take the form of public feedback, project development, or petitions in the past, but has grown to include public drafting of bills and constitutions, among other things. This form of public involvement in the governing process differs from older systems of popular action, from town halls to referendums, in that it is primarily conducted online or through a similar IT medium.

LaserShip is a regional last-mile delivery company that services the Eastern and Midwest United States. Founded in 1986, LaserShip is based in Vienna, Virginia and has sorting centers in New Jersey, Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LSO (company)</span> Regional shipping carrier

LSO, originally known as Lone Star Overnight, was an Austin, Texas-based regional shipping carrier that focuses on Express next day delivery, utilizing both air and ground transportation in Texas, southeastern New Mexico, certain metro markets in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama & Tennessee, as well as northern Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roadie (app)</span> American crowdsourced delivery platform

Roadie Inc. is an American crowdsourced delivery platform for business and private same-day, urgent and scheduled delivery in the United States. The company was founded in 2014 and launched its web and mobile apps in January 2015. As of September 2021, it reported having over 200,000 drivers covering more than 20,000 zip codes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Package redirection scam</span> Form of e-commerce fraud

A package redirection scam is a form of e-commerce fraud, where a malicious actor manipulates a shipping label, to trick the mail carrier into delivering the package to the wrong address. This is usually done through product returns to make the merchant believe that they mishandled the return package, and thus provide a refund without the item being returned. It can also be done by the seller, generally by creating fraudulent online stores or creating fake listings on sites such as eBay or Mercari. This makes it very hard to perform a chargeback, as the tracking shows the item has been delivered. This is also known as an FTID scam, standing for Fake Tracking ID. When this scam is successful, the tracking number will show that the package has been delivered to the correct address, when the package was instead delivered to a different address. This package is generally empty or filled with garbage. However, this scam has mostly been “patched” via new technology provided by the various couriers globally. It is estimated the scam cost retailers £18,000,000,000 in lost revenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Veho Tech</span>

Veho Technologies is an American logistics service company based in New York, U.S, providing last-mile delivery and return services. The company was founded in 2016, launching a mobile app matching gig-economy drivers with package deliveries in their local areas. The company's name "Veho" comes from Latin, meaning "to carry."

References

  1. ↑ Carbone, Valentina; Rouquet, Aurélien; Roussat, Christine (2017). "The Rise of Crowd Logistics: A New Way to Co-Create Logistics Value" (PDF). Journal of Business Logistics. 38 (4): 238–252. doi:10.1111/jbl.12164. S2CID   168925309.
  2. ↑ Mckinnon, Alan (2016). "Crowdshipping: a Communal Approach to Reducing Urban Traffic Levels?". Unpublished. doi:10.13140/rg.2.2.20271.53925.
  3. ↑ "Using the 'crowd' to deliver packages" (PDF), US Post Office Inspector General, p. 1, retrieved 2014-02-12
  4. ↑ Musafer, Shanaz (14 April 2009), "Unusual ways to make money", BBC, retrieved April 14, 2009
  5. ↑ "Got a spare hour? Zipments.com will pay you to move something across town.", Michigan Live, retrieved May 6, 2011
  6. ↑ Hockenson, Lauren (7 June 2012), "Trade Valuable Goods for Unique Travel Experiences.", Mashable, retrieved June 7, 2012
  7. ↑ Béchet, Gilles, "The sharing economy, a revolution on the move.", Le Soir, retrieved September 10, 2013
  8. ↑ Russell, Jon (12 December 2013), "Friendshippr helps you 'crowdship' products and goods via friends on Facebook.", The Next Web, retrieved 2013-12-12
  9. ↑ "Issue In Focus: Using the 'Crowd' to Deliver Packages".
  10. ↑ "Using the 'Crowd' to Deliver Packages" (PDF), Issue in Focus United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, retrieved 2014-02-12
  11. 1 2 Rougès, J. F.; Montreuil, B., Crowdsourcing delivery: New interconnected business models to reinvent delivery (PDF), retrieved 2014-05-28
  12. ↑ Rifkin, Jeremy (2014). The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism. St. Martin's Press. ISBN   978-1-137-27846-3.
  13. ↑ "Breakthrough from Innovation to Impact, Volume 1", The Owls Foundation, retrieved Mar 19, 2017
  14. ↑ Carbone V.; Rouquet A.; Roussat C. (2017), "The Rise of Crowd Logistics: A New Way to Co‐Create Logistics Value." (PDF), Journal of Business Logistics, 38 (4): 238–252, doi:10.1111/jbl.12164, S2CID   168925309
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 Carbone, Valentina; Rouquet, Aurélien; Roussat, Christine (2017). "The Rise of Crowd Logistics: A New Way to Co-Create Logistics Value" (PDF). Journal of Business Logistics. 38 (4): 238–252. doi:10.1111/jbl.12164. S2CID   168925309.
  16. ↑ Abudheen, Sainul, "This Filipino startup turns your traffic stress into money", E27, retrieved May 6, 2011
  17. ↑ "Got a spare hour? Zipments.com will pay you to move something across town.", Michigan Live, retrieved March 20, 2019
  18. ↑ Smith, Jennifer, "Cargomatic Gets New Funding as Rebuilding Effort Gains Traction.", The World Street Journal, archived from the original on August 15, 2018, retrieved August 15, 2018
  19. ↑ Fuller, Andrea, "Travelers Profit by Skirting Customs When Using Delivery Apps.", The World Street Journal, archived from the original on October 29, 2018, retrieved October 29, 2018
  20. ↑ Tyrsina, Radu, "Parcl Uses Trusted Forwarders to Bring you Products that don't Ship to your Country", Technology Personalised, archived from the original on October 3, 2015, retrieved October 1, 2015
  21. ↑ Mаршева, Влада, "В Чехии появилась новая возможность получить посылку из зарубежного магазина", 420On, archived from the original on October 3, 2015, retrieved October 1, 2015
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