Archive for the ‘Shutl HQ’ Category


Festival fever!

Friday, August 26th, 2011

Muse!  Pulp!  Jimmy Eat World!  It all kicks off at Reading and Leeds tomorrow, and we’ve got festival fever.  Of course, your boss has just handed you a pile of work because you’re taking Friday off and you’re going to be in the office until at least 8…  And you only discovered last night that your tent is mouldy and you have nothing to wear.  Luckily, Shutl are looking out for you!  Order from your essentials from Argos, get a quick makeover at Oasis, and snap up a bargain at Warehouse – all within 90 minutes!

1. Shelter

If you need a tent, you can’t go wrong with this stylish pop-up number. It will save you time pitching so you can arrive is style and get right into partying.  It’s distinctive enough to stand out from the crowd, without screaming “steal me” and best of all, it’s less than half price!




2. Sleep

If it suddenly looks like the flimsy summer sleeping bag you packed just isn’t going to cut it, and have no space to pack wooly socks and a hat to sleep in, upgrade your sleeping bag to a 500gsm – it’s like a cocoon shaped hug, protecting you from the elements as those around you shiver in the August downpours.





3. Fashion

If you just can’t get your head around Wellies, and are confident you’ll be able to blag your way into the carpeted bliss of the VIP section, these boots will look fantastic with some shorts and a vest top. What’s more they will last you all the way though autumn! Team them with this amazing cardy, and you’ll be the chicest chica in the arena!




Finally, if you’re really stuck for something to wear, there is always that fail-safe festival favourite – the humble playsuit.  Comfortable yet stylish, it allows you to get a tan without stripping off, and you can piggy back on your mate’s shoulders without giving everyone trying to get a glimpse of Jarvis Cocker an eyeful! We love this one from Warehouse: and with the special offer on at the moment; it could be Shutl’d to you for just 90p!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Shutl HQ, blog | No Comments »


R.I.P. Rupert Greenhill: Shutler. Investor. Dog walker. Friend.

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

Last week, the Shutl crew lost one of our first recruits; Rupert Greenhill, who joined us as an intern in July ‘09. Truth be told, at the time there really wasn’t very much of a crew. Although Guy, Steve and I were all working together, none of us were employees and we had no office. Instead we enjoyed the hospitality of Shoreditch House and my living room.

Rupert stood out among applicants for the internship “at a stealth tech startup” that we advertised on Enternships. For starters, he was 28… he possessed a law degree and had spent the previous 3 years enjoying success on a city trading floor. He was basically over-qualified to be doing any of the jobs we were doing, let alone be an intern!  Intrigued, I set up an interview. Rupert explained to us openly that he had been unsatisfied by banking and wanted to find a role where he could develop his business skills whilst ‘making a real contribution to growing a successful and lasting business’. We knew he was right for us immediately and offered him the internship. Fortunately for us, Rupert accepted – despite the fact that we had no funding and so were paying next to nothing.

When we took on our first investment, we offered Rupert a full-time job. He asked if he could invest in the pre-business and so we were delighted to have him as a shareholder too. The following year his £10k came in very useful, buying us another much needed week as we finalised our second investment round.

Rupert’s named role was ‘business development’ which was our way of saying we weren’t creative enough to come up with a title for all the things we needed him for!

He went out and found several of our first clients and worked very closely with Start London, ensuring we were able to make our first delivery. He took bookings for them over the phone when their site was down or they wanted to offer Shutl to an in-store customer. He acted as our in-house legal council and saved us countless gazillions over the years in legal fees for capital raising, IP registering, agreements with our retailers, carriers & consumers. He took on with gusto the role of information / data compliance officer and everything else we threw at him; including regularly taking @Shutldog for walks (particularly when Hendryks was only a few months old and at his most attractive to humans of the opposite sex…).

Rupert was a great ambassador to clients, partners and potential employees. He was also responsible for recruiting our first development intern, the Crawfmeister, who like Rupert also joined our crew full-time.

Feeling tired at the end of last year, shortly after celebrating his 30th birthday, Rupert went to his GP who sent him off for tests. The results were not good. Although he was initially diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a relatively treatable form of cancer, subsequent tests showed him to have a rarer and more malignant form.

Soon after his diagnosis, Rupes came to see me to explain his situation. It was crushing, particularly since he was so healthy and full of life. He put on a very brave face and was matter of fact regarding treatment etc. I could only imagine what must have been racing through his mind. Rupert then asked me something surprising, whether he could continue working ostensibly so that he could maintain a degree of normality in his life. I agreed very quickly. The truth being that I just didn’t know how we could cope without him.

As Rupes’ treatment progressed and his prognosis worsened we saw less and less of him, despite always being at the other end of a phone call/email whenever there was a question that none of us could answer. His and our hope was always that chemotherapy and radiotherapy would weaken the cancer enough that he could undergo a bone marrow transplant. I received an email from Rupert last Sunday letting me know that his latest treatment hadn’t been successful and that he did not have much time left. He wanted me to pass on the news to his colleagues and also to make arrangements for his shares and let me know that there would be a ‘party’.

Alongside the rest of the Shutl team, I feel incredibly privileged to have worked with Rupert over the last two years and fortunate to call him a friend. We only wish that he would be around to see the fruits of his labour and hugely valuable contribution. He is already greatly missed.

Our thoughts and prayers at this difficult time are with Rupert’s parents, his brother & sister and his many, many friends.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Shutl HQ, blog | 3 Comments »


Feedback at Shutl: Why we (really) are only as good as our last delivery

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

It wouldn’t surprise me if the mantra “we’re only as good as our last delivery” were in fact the tagline of the Pony Express – it is as old as the courier industry itself. I’ve always found it more than a little disingenuous for a very simple (and perhaps somewhat pedantic) reason.

In the vast majority of cases the courier company’s client is the sender, not the recipient. The recipient has minimal influence over the courier company effecting their delivery. In most cases, an online shopper only discovers which delivery company their retailer has used when their goods arrive – or when they are instead greeted with a doormat decoration.  You only have to look at what Amazon’s customers say about their primary delivery provide to understand how absurd a notion it is that there is a negative correlation between a disappointing last delivery and the volume of future deliveries.

Forget about our last delivery, we want our first!
A key structural difference between Shutl and a conventional delivery provider is that the decision to use our service (or not) lies with the shopper. If a shopper has had a bad experience with Shutl in the past, it has a direct impact on their likelihood of using our service in the future. Since we are a start-up and virtually all our deliveries are a shopper’s first, we have to work extra hard to persuade the shopper to try us, and then make sure their first Shutl experience leads to a second.

Reviews are essential for us, both as a means of attracting shoppers willing to give our service a go and of ensuring that we provide a high level of service.

Internally, we rate our carriers’ performance using both quantitative and qualitative feedback. Our platform determines whether (or not) a carrier has collected and delivered on-time from the real-time data we take out of our courier partners’ systems. Additionally, we send an email to the consumer asking them to rate the qualitative aspects of their experience including the actual courier performing the delivery. By making these performance factors a key component of future courier selection we incentivise our carriers to perform well.

Externally, we broadcast shoppers’ feedback on our service to Twitter [@shutlfeed] and to www.shutl.co.uk/feedback. Whilst this may not be very unusual in itself, because we actively solicit comments from every customer, we receive a surprisingly high response rate. These reviews are streamed live and un-censored.

The double edged tweet
Despite consistently high levels of customer satisfaction, the volume of deliveries that we do and the nature of our industry (lots of moving parts!) means that there will always be the occasional customer who is left disappointed for one reason or another. With this in mind we have implemented a very basic commenting platform on our feedback page enabling us to engage with our customers and talk them through any problems they may be encountering.

We feel that publicly sharing all our reviews and feedback is the right thing to do for several self-serving reasons:

  • Being open makes us easier to trust: Our view is that the best way to give potential customers an accurate picture of what to expect is to give them a fair picture of what real shoppers think of our service. Further, we believe that the true test of a service’s mettle is how it responds when things don’t go to plan. Being transparent here and showing customers what they can expect enables us to set expectations realistically – and thus making it easier for us to meet them.
  • It keeps us on our toes: There is no better incentive against letting standards slip than the ever-looming possibility of an unhappy customer posting a negative comment on our homepage.
  • It enables us to prevent future problems: By actively soliciting feedback from our customers we are made aware of all kinds of niggles that consumers wouldn’t normally go to the effort of complaining about. Whilst we are small we can respond quickly to these, help iron them out and make our service better for future users.
  • We believe in what we are doing: We know our model works and drives a superior customer experience. Given this we feel our (happy) customers are the most valuable advertisements we have.

Are there any other things you think we could be doing to help us improve our service… and our chances of getting your next delivery?

Tags: ,
Posted in Multichannel retail, Shutl HQ, blog, eCommerce | 4 Comments »


Shutl accepts investment from Hummingbird Ventures and a major European postal group

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

We’re delighted to announce that we have accepted £650,000 in funding from Hummingbird Ventures and a major European postal group. This latest round of funding builds on the success of our pilot with Argos, the UK’s leading multi-channel retailer. Shutl will use this additional investment to build our sales team, expand the software development team and begin exploring international opportunities.

For full details please read our press release.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Shutl HQ, blog | No Comments »


Skip the queues and be the first to get a Nintendo 3DS with Argos & Shutl!

Friday, March 25th, 2011

Given the demand for this ‘must have’ gadget, queues on the high street are likely to go out the door, round the corner and down the road.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get your hands on a 3DS today without wasting your day in a queue?

Good news… like all things worthwhile, the 3DS is stocked within the catalogue of dreams.  Simply reserve the item at a Central London store on Argos.co.uk and then once you have confirmed your order choose to get it Shutl’d to you.

Shutl will deliver it to you within as little as 90 minutes or at a time of your choice from just £4.95.  You could even get it delivered straight to the pub for maximum show-off value.

Here’s how it works:
Shutl delivery is currently available from the following 12 Argos stores:

•  Whitechapel

•  Old Street

•  Holborn

•  New Oxford Street

•  Camden

•  Marble Arch

•  Victoria

•  Kilburn

•  Hammersmith

•  Old Kent Road

•  Kensington

•  Shepherd’s Bush

To place your order just follow these simple steps:
1. Find the Nintendo 3DS on argos.co.uk (by clicking on the “Shop now” button at the bottom of this post) and check local stock .


2. Reserve the item for store pick-up from one of the 12 participating Argos stores.


3. When offered Shutl delivery, click ‘Calculate my quote’.

4. Confirm your delivery postcode and choose your shutl delivery option to get a quote.


Tags: , ,
Posted in Clients, Shutl HQ, blog, eCommerce | 1 Comment »


The Best Delivery Substitutions

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Like pretty much everyone else with an email account, we at Shutl await with great anticipation for the Money Saving Expert newsletter to fall into our in-boxes every week so we can bag ourselves the best deals possible.  After the girls had had their shoe fix for the week, and we all checked that we aren’t paying to much for our bills, this little nugget caught our eye.

In the same week that Waitrose launch their online delivery option, putting the entire population of Hampshire in a state of unease when faced with the choice between Ocado and Waitrose own delivery, Money Saving Expert has a lighthearted thread dedicated entirely to interesting online grocery shopping substitutions.  Amongst the somewhat normal sounding substitutions of 2 whole chickens when the customer ordered chicken wings, and the frankly fantastic dozen Creme Eggs instead of 12 Organic Free Range Eggs, there are some real head-scratchers.   I feel sorry for the poor soul who ordered a pack of Durex Extra only to be presented with a box of Anadin Extra, and Shutldog was visibly appalled when we told him of a tin of dog food being replaced with cat food.

Humorous though they may be, these issues do raise an interesting point.  If a customer orders groceries online that are unavailable, should we even attempt to replace them?  On one hand, if you’re planning a roast dinner and a free range, organic, corn-fed chicken arrives instead of the value range one you ordered, kitchen dancing probably happens.  On the other hand, only you know for which purpose you ordered said item, and even the smartest computer cannot follow one’s thought patterns.  Spare a thought for the lady who decided to cook a curry on a dreary Thursday, but was presented with strawberry instead of plain yogurt in her online shopping.  To most of us, strawberry definitely trumps plain, but it’s no use in curry!

At Shutl we believe in great customer service, and to that end would always encourage the retailers we work with to let the customer know in advance if they are going to be shutl’d a toaster instead of a kettle.  We know everyone out there has their own horror story, so the next person who comes in to Shutl HQ for a cup of tea and brings with them a great tale of substitution is being offered a free tin of Whiskas and at least 15 minutes of unbearable cuteness curtsey of Shutldog!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Shutl HQ, blog | No Comments »


Metapack Home Delivery Conference 2011

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

On Thursday 17th February, the great and the good of the home delivery community descended upon the Victoria Park Plaza hotel in central London. Organised and hosted by delivery solution provider Metapack, the event sought to bring together suppliers and retailers to create a forum for sharing innovation and best practices within the sector.

With Shutl sponsoring the event, Tom and I attended, armed with some punchy statistics and bold statements. Tom gave a presentation entitled “Shutl: Putting the rocket into delivery” (see embedded slideshare below) which we hoped would wow the retailers in the room, as well as rattle some of the suppliers… In the very least it managed to stimulate some interesting conversations.

Shutl: Putting the rocket into delivery

View more presentations from guywestlake

Key points:

  • Delivery is costing retailers £billions through lost sales and redelivery costs
  • The majority of consumers are not happy about delivery
  • Shutl shoppers are happier and more profitable than normal home delivery customers

As a relative novice to the sector, I was intrigued to see how the carriers present marketed themselves to their target audience. I’m afraid my conclusion was that for the traditional parcel carriers a large budget buys you a lot of marketing fluff and not much in the way of product enhancement, much less quantifiable benefits.  There was much talk of consumer engagement, however I just ouldn’t see any good reason for engagement.  I got the distinct impression of a market heading towards commoditisation.

Definitely room in this sector for agile innovators to create major waves and compelling consumer propositions.  On that subject, we  were impressed by the progress made by other “alternative” delivery solutions like ByBox and Collect+.

Hats off to Metapack for pulling off a great event and for managing such an impressive turnout on the day. I know from experience how hard it is to get the balance right between suppliers and customers, and it seemed to be absolutely spot on.  Job very well done. We look forward to 2012!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Shutl HQ, blog | No Comments »


What you can expect from Shutl in 2011…

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

Following on from our recent retrospective on ‘10, we thought it would be a good idea to give you an idea of the 5 key areas we are working on  in 2011.

Yep…it’s going to be a pretty busy year!

1. Beyond the smoke

Although London was a great place to launch Shutl, we have never thought of our service as being limited by the confines of the M25… The rest of the UK, and indeed the rest of the world, needs to benefit from delivery at rocket speed.  2011 will finally see this happen… for the UK at least.

Although today we can’t tell you when exactly we will be expanding where, we can tell you that we are aiming to cover all major UK conurbations by Xmas.  Our wider UK roll-out is determined by 3 key factors; volume of retailers within a specific geography, consumer demand and carrier coverage.

If you would like to influence our plans, go ahead and register your interest with us by clicking on one of the following links!

2. Showing off

The implementations that we have done to date pretty much all fall into the “proof of concept” category.  They are great at demonstrating that Shutl is not a pipe dream, that customers love our service, and that it makes good economic sense to the retailer has a +ive ROI however none are anywhere near as compelling as they could be.  The projects that you will see launched over the next six months are going to be case studies in how retailers can really maximise ROI from Shutl.

3. Getting credible

The retailers that are currently offering Shutl took a gamble and have pioneered our service. We’re delighted to say that they’ve been rewarded with some great results and that we have been able to demonstrate significant improvements to profitability and satisfaction.

That we have nice things to say about ourselves, is fairly predictable.  The next step is for our retail partners to start testifying as to the value of our service.  Expect some case studies in the not-too-distant future.

4. Democratising Shutl

We want to make it clear that in order for a retailer to benefit from Shutl you don’t need to have billions in turn-over, hundreds of locations and an army of developers.  We want the Shutl service to be open and accessible to retailers of all shapes and sizes.

In order to make Shutl implementation cost effective, we are working with a number of key partners, vendors (particularly eCommerce platforms and ERP/EPOS providers) and digital agencies.   A great example of what is possible is the module we have developed with POD1 for Magento, the world’s fastest growing ecommerce platform.

5. Shutl as a verb

Over the last year we’ve done a fairly good job of making ourselves known to relevant retailers.  Let’s just say that Tom is in need of a new pair of shoes…

Our next and greatest marketing challenge is in getting consumers to start demanding Shutl from their favourite retailers.  Building a consumer brand is an expensive business, and we are but a cash-strapped start-up… however we have some pretty nifty ideas up our sleeve.

Let me share one of them… its pretty ground breaking… provide our current customers with an experience they want to rave about.

Is there anything you think we are missing?  Great if you could add in the comments below.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Shutl HQ, blog | 2 Comments »


Shutl’s top 10 of 2010

Monday, January 31st, 2011

I know we are already well into 2011… but as Guy will attest I am very bad at finishing blog posts!

Here are the highlights of our first full year, in chronological order: *

1. Steven Kemp joins the launch crew as Head of Service

I was really thrilled that Steven was willing to brave working with me again for 3 key reasons:

  • As eCourier.co.uk’s “Head of Happiness”, Steven has managed just about every operational and customer challenge courier companies can face. This unflappable man manages the service provided by our carriers to shoppers.
  • Before getting diverted by couriers, Steven built B2C call centres for some of UK’s best known brands. Since our couriers are not used to interacting with consumers, our call centre manage shopper relationships day to day ensuring Shutl exceeds expectations 24/7.
  • Steven is a 5th Dan blackbelt with .XLS. Seriously you should see what he has done with our internal reports. Ninja.

I would not be so impertinent as to disclose Steven’s age – let’s just say that he is as close as we get to having day-to-day adult supervision! Not that you would know it from his photo.

2. Completed integration with our first carriers

We are incredibly grateful for all the support that Excel, eCourier.co.uk & Lewis Day, our first carriers, have given us over our first year. Before we began integration we spent a lot of time with them ensuring that the proposition we were planning to take to market would be viable. We owe them and their couriers a great deal; they have provided our shoppers with a fantastic quality of service even at the height of snowmageddon.

3. First retailer live and delivery complete

Our first client was Start London, arguably East London’s premier fashion boutique. We developed a very basic module for the OS Commerce which our friends at The Technical People then implemented. Start will always be close to our hearts… not just because they are our neighbours!

Start London

The technical people

4. Implement our first in-store proposition

Laithwaites, the UK’s leading direct wine merchant, were the first retailer to launch our in-store Point Of Sale (POS) delivery service. The solution allows staff at flagship store, ‘The Arch‘, at Vinopolis in Borough Market, to offer their off-line customers Shutl delivery.

We see this development as a massive opportunity to expand our delivery model into traditional retail. The service has been particularly handy for those buying cases of wine without their own transportation (it is London afterall) and also for anyone leaving birthday presents to the last minute!

5. 1st Argos delivery!

Probably the highlight of our year was the launch of our service with the UK’s largest multi-channel retailer. When we began working with Argos we were little more than a business plan and a few lines of code! We are very grateful for the chance they took with us and the support they have given us over the year. Argos have been offering our service for free on orders over £50 and customers are loving it.

6. Completing follow-on round of investment from existing shareholders

Once we were live with Argos we raised £400k from our existing shareholders. All start-ups are reliant on the faith of their investors until they are profitable. We are very grateful for the fantastic support that all our shareholders have provided, particularly as it took a little longer than we expected to get up and running…

7. Barend & Steve join our Board!

In recognition of their growing contribution to Shutl, Steve Romney, Shutl’s CTO and Barend Van Den Brande, Managing Partner of Hummingbird Ventures were both appointed to Shutl’s Board of Directors.

Steve has been responsible for the successful launch and continued development of Shutl’s technology platform.

Barend brings a wealth of experience growing enterprise software businesses…. and a pot of cash. The pot of cash does not attend board meetings.

8. Building our on-shore development team

While we continue to work with Veriqual, an off-shore development firm based in Pakistan, we intend to build our in-house capability alongside to help us speed though our development roadmap. We have lots of cool stuff we want to bring to market.

David Batey Crawford Wynnes

With this in mind, David Batey joined us from Accenture in October. Our new lead developer was very excited because rather than spending his time on boring SAP integrations now he gets to mess around with elastic cloud computing & beat Guy up (on the squash court). He also gets the company of Crawford Wynnes. Crawford joined Shutl straight out of uni as our development intern… however he impressed us so much he became our full-time junior developer. Crawford provides us with no end of entertainment as he recovers from a recent tonsillectomy (and has been prescribed some pretty strong drugs).

9. Awards

As the year came to a close we were really honoured to win best Angel/VC backed business at the 2010 Startups Awards organised by Startups.co.uk. This was a great win for us since at the time of entering we had only been live a few short months with very little to show…

Over the course of the year we also won:

10. Integration with ROCS & ACI courier despatch software

ROCS & ACI are two of the UK’s most popular courier management software packages used by UK same-day courier firms. Both these firms have now implemented integrations with Shutl’s APIs. The result is that it is now super easy for any courier company on these platforms to start working with Shutl. This is key for us because as we are offered by more retailers and serve more of the country we are going to need a lot of couriers.

*we reserve the right to publish another post of low-points at some point in the not-too-distant future when we are fantastically successful.

Tags:
Posted in Awards, Clients, Shutl HQ, blog | No Comments »


Snow? What snow?

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

This was the view from Shutl HQ as the deluge began on Friday 17th Dec. Needless to say it got a lot worse...

The recent snow has put retailers across the UK into a state of panic, their customers shying away from shopping online for fear of not receiving their gifts in time for Christmas.  With transport affected, stores have also been seriously impacted and the peak sales period has taken a serious blow to the chest.  The snow may be beginning to thaw now (here in London at least), but it’s impact may be felt for some time to come.  And it gets worse; there’s possibly more to come… maybe even in time to thwart the post Xmas sales period…

Delivery companies have struggled to cope in the conditions, with many retailers having to release warnings that certain parts of the UK would not be receiving their presents in time for Christmas.   Shutl by contrast has succeeded in operating a full service.  At the height of the bad weather, only a handful of our customers faced minor delays; however these could be measured in minutes and hours rather than days and weeks.  Where we were unable to deliver within the original timeframe, customers were given the option to book a new delivery window at a convenient time later that day or the following day.

Our carriers have done an incredible job of keeping Shutl customers happy – in many cases exceeding expectations – and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for the fantastic work they do.  Just check out some of the fantastic feedback comments we’ve been receiving!  As a result of the great service they provide, we’ll be offering both “Shutl Now” (delivery from within 90 mins) and “Shutl Later” (choose a 1 hour delivery window) options right up until the last moment on Christmas Eve. So, as far as we’re concerned, there’s HEAPS of time left to do your remaining Christmas shopping…

What’s more, Shutl delivery is currently FREE from Argos for all reservations over £50!

Retailers need to sit up and start thinking hard about how they’re going to cope with similar situations in the future.  We’ll always be more than happy to help out…

Snow?  What snow?

Have a very merry Christmas!

Useful links:

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Clients, Multichannel retail, Shutl HQ, blog, eCommerce | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »