Upstart click-and-collect start-up CornerDrop is one of the finalists in the 2015 MassChallenge, competing for a share of £500,000 in funding.
CornerDrop describes itself as the “click-and-collect service for everyone.”
Shoppers who want to send a parcel to an alternative location with CornerDrop can purchase and activate credits from the company’s site. A Magento extension will be launched later this summer which will automatically generate codes when the online purchase is made.
The customer just adds the CornerDrop code and location as the alternative delivery address. When the parcel arrives, they show the full code and pin to the CornerDrop outlet to collect.
In the event there is no CornerDrop outlet nearby, shoppers can nominate a nearby business, and are incentivised to do this by the provision of additional free credits on their account.
The company says its network covers the UK and includes the Isle of Man, which is not part of the UK, and the Isle of Skye, which is.
CornerDrop has around 500 outlets, and a stated aim of signing up 2,000 of them by October, which would give it a network comparable in size to the likes of Tesco, and a five-year plan to start trading internationally and have so many outlets in the UK that no one is more than 500m from one.
CornerDrop’s head of digital, Suzy Lloyd, said: “Any business location can become a CornerDrop, and any online retailer can offer customers parcel collection from a local drop point early until late, seven days a week. No more letterbox cards, lost Saturdays or lunchtime queues.
“Online retailers have real problems with getting product into shoppers hands. Customers also suffer with missed deliveries and delivery companies suffer major inefficiencies as a result of these non-deliveries.”
MassChallenge runs start-up accelerators aimed at connecting high-impact start-ups with the resources they need, and it doesn’t take equity or place any restrictions on the start-ups it supports.
It runs programmes in Boston, Israel and the UK, to provide mentorship, office space, education, access to a network of contacts and peers, and other resources during four months of acceleration.
