Around 40% of online orders in Egypt fail to reach their customers the first time, due to issues with shipping times, mainly. This opened up Mahdi Al-Olabi’s eyes to the idea of R2S, which aims to provide a solution to this problem for millions of people.
Mahdi, an e-commerce veteran, was always interested in e-commerce, particularly, its development in South East Asia, India and China. Studying their markets made him realize that one of the most important aspects of the success of e-commerce in these countries, lies in the strength of logistics and the experience afforded to users.
He found that improving user experience, especially in delivery, can increase user retention by over 50%, which is exactly what R2S aims to do. Egypt and the GCC represent 80% of the volume of the e-commerce market in the MENA region, this market continues to grow in sales by 30% annually, which represented a huge opportunity for Mahdi.
Most online shoppers in Egypt are people between the ages of 18 – 35, who lead busy lives and are usually unavailable at the time of delivery. R2S is a B2B logistics company with a network of 250 physical stores, that allows packages to be picked up by customers from their nearby stores. Thereby, enabling customers to choose the closest receiving location, the best timing, and the payment method that suits them to receive their packages.
R2S has 300 clients including IKEA and Jumia, who deliver their goods to its logistics centers around Egypt, where the packages are sorted. So far, R2S has managed to achieve a 93% success rate in delivering shipments, which encouraged and retained 75% of its users.
The company recently launched R2S Plus, a platform connecting its partner stores directly to e-commerce sites, giving customers more control over their shipping and delivery experience.
A15, invested millions of Egyptian pounds in R2S Logistics in a pre-Series A round in December 2019, enabling further growth and expansion of the e-commerce delivery company.
According to A15, R2S is adopting a distinct business model. Their “asset light model” allows them to expand the geographical areas of their services to cover all parts of Egypt. R2S is acquiring more logistical centers around Egypt to expand its network to 600 stores across by November 2020.
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