GAME CHANGERS and Dante Tsang, pitched the business idea in a local event organised for Hong Kong start-ups and won an award for innovation. This in turn attracted investors. Founders note that the service they offer is an appealing option when not buying from an established brand. Hong Kong Business spoke with the founders of AfterShip, initially named as Awesome Ship, to learn more about this innovative start-up.
Teddy Chan, Andrew Chan, Dante Tsang
How to track your packages online AfterShip offers a comprehensive service to track all your packages in one place, regardless of shipping provider.
A
fterShip, a firm which started operation last March, helps online merchant stores to auto-track packages in one place from dispatch until delivery and notify customers delivery updates through email, SMS and social media like Twitter. Simply put, there’s no need to remember tracking numbers anymore. All that customers have to do is link their email accounts or shopping cart accounts to auto-import all tracking numbers. AfterShip offers an open beta tracking system which is used by online merchants selling items through shop-front store platforms, such as eBay, Amazon, Shopify, Magento and Spree. The service supports USPS, UPS, Fedex, DHL and 40 other major couriers. AfterShip also provides online stores a reporting tool detailing any problems incurred during shipping like delayed delivery for merchants to solve them immediately. Founders boast that the e-commerce shipment service they offer improves customer service after shipping and reduces enquiries about order status. They promise 50% increase in return customers and 40% reduction in operating cost. Co-founder Andrew Chan says that the market currently lacks a single platform for merchants to track all their shipments in one place that supports multiple couriers, postal services and channels. Teddy Chan, also a co-Founder, runs an online store himself and felt the pain of his customers when not being notified about the delivery status. Teddy, together with Andrew 22 HONG KONG BUSINESS | JANUARY 2013
HKB: What do you think makes your company promising? Currently in the market, there is no single platform for merchants to track all their shipments in one place that supports multiple couriers or postal services and sales channels like eBay, Amazon, Shopify, Magento and the like. According to a survey from Limelight in 2010, 79% of online shoppers rank “the ability to track shipments” as the most important customer service feature. AfterShip focuses on the e-commerce B2B markets, targeting over 11million online merchants who ship out nearly 17 billion packages for 575 million customers each year. With the global e-commerce market growing at 19% annually, there will be a stronger need for online merchants and customers to use our service. Hong Kong has a unique position for starting e-commerce business where stores can enjoy lower product costs, lower taxes and lower shipping rates. HKB: What are your significant milestones so far? AfterShip was founded after winning the 2011 Hong Kong Startup Weekend and 2011 Global Startup Battle in Dec 2011. In Jan 2012, the startup also won a HKD$100,000 micro funding from Cyberport Micro Fund Program, a leading incubator in Hong Kong. The team launched AfterShip.com in Mar 2012 and signed the first paid e-commerce client in Apr 2012. AfterShip helped online retailers send out over 200K shipping notifications in Jun 2012. We secured our first overseas funding from an Australian company “Business Switch” in return for a 5% share. HKB: What’s the market response to your latest offerings? We received positive feedback so far and many merchants wanted such service for a long time as it increased return customers. Some of our customers comment that AfterShip improves customer experience while at the same time cutting down on customer service inquiries on the status of their order. HKB: Are you facing difficulties so far? We were struggling whether to open our service free for individual customers to use at the beginning but at the end, we decided to serve mainly the online retailers (B2B) so that we can allocate more resources to customers who are willing to pay. Nonetheless, AfterShip is free to use for merchants shipping less than 100 shipments each month. HKB: What are your future plans and offerings? We plan to launch an application programming interface for tracking and integrate tracking of 100 shipping couriers worldwide.