This is not the industry I work in, but one of which I'm often a customer:
A turnkey package tracking system for small-to-medium shippers.
In much of the world the shipping (as in DHL, FedEx) markets are still very fragmented and do not look like they're going to consolidate all that much. (As to why, I have guesses but I don't know for sure. I'm looking at Central Europe right now but I expect this is true in many other regions).
As far as I can tell the package tracking systems are something the companies compete on, with the result that a lot of them suck or (worst case) don't exist.
Case in point: I'm currently waiting for a shipment that the seller swears they gave to the shipper, but the shipper's system doesn't recognize the code. Both parties maintain it's probably just not "processed" yet at the shipper's, going on three days now.
As a software guy, I find it crazy that nobody has a generic white-label tracking system that any random shipper can use in combination with some smartphones/tablets for label scanning. It only has to cost less than the company pays the owner's cousin's teenage son to write the tracking PHP code these companies would otherwise use, and I bet you could upsell all kinds of premium add-ons if it worked well.
I would love to see this, and I think it's a big enough market to actually accommodate a startup.
I was just at slush, and I think one of the startup finalists was working on this problem, though honestly, it's a pretty foreign problem to me.
The company is ShipWallet:
http://www.shipwallet.com/
Hey Biztos, why do you think this would be a big market? What would be some potential customers of such a turnkey tracking system? I imagine big players like DHL/FedEx would not be target customers due to their high traffic and already existing internal package tracking systems
Very late reply, but just in case you're still watching: I don't think DHL/FedEx would be obvious customers but they might be obvious acquirers if your tech really rocked.
AFAICT there are still a lot of small local and regional shippers who offer a better deal than FedEx/DHL -- I assume that's mostly on price but it could also be on expertise, proximity, nepotism, whatever -- and the deal has remained consistently better for many years despite FedEx, DHL, UPS, and other large players being in the market.
My guess is that the further away from the FedEx/DHL hubs you get, the less attractive their service and the higher their prices -- and it looks to me like more and more stuff is being sold online in these markets too, and that stuff has very low margins and needs to get shipped for "free" or at least cheap.
Furthermore, in Europe at least you have direct competitors to FedEx/DHL on the international level (at least within the EU). Players at that level have their own tracking systems, sure, but that means they have to have IT crews, software developers, etc. and I'm sure they'd much rather not.
It's probably a much smaller market but there are also specialty transporters for stuff like art and antiques. I'm sure they absolutely hate having to care about tracking systems when their value-adding expertise is so thoroughly elsewhere.
A turnkey package tracking system for small-to-medium shippers.
In much of the world the shipping (as in DHL, FedEx) markets are still very fragmented and do not look like they're going to consolidate all that much. (As to why, I have guesses but I don't know for sure. I'm looking at Central Europe right now but I expect this is true in many other regions).
As far as I can tell the package tracking systems are something the companies compete on, with the result that a lot of them suck or (worst case) don't exist.
Case in point: I'm currently waiting for a shipment that the seller swears they gave to the shipper, but the shipper's system doesn't recognize the code. Both parties maintain it's probably just not "processed" yet at the shipper's, going on three days now.
As a software guy, I find it crazy that nobody has a generic white-label tracking system that any random shipper can use in combination with some smartphones/tablets for label scanning. It only has to cost less than the company pays the owner's cousin's teenage son to write the tracking PHP code these companies would otherwise use, and I bet you could upsell all kinds of premium add-ons if it worked well.
I would love to see this, and I think it's a big enough market to actually accommodate a startup.