Shaking up the traditional courier industry with 1Fetch

According the the founders the service was developed to address the need for an effective, fast and secure courier service in the country.

The courier service is available via the 1Fetch app, through which users can book and pay for the delivery and have the package picked up within minutes. The company uses a fleet of motorbikes instead of "conventional" delivery vehicles, which they say streamlines the delivery process and aids in navigating SA’s traffic congestion.

It also delivers directly to the destination, immediately – no warehouse stopovers, no delays. 1Fetch is completely secure, using geo-tracking to ensure you know the whereabouts of your package from collection to delivery. All payments are handled via an external accredited payment processor.

“This service was launched in Sandton due to the location’s high utility and convenience spend. We live in a fast-paced world where time comes at a premium and instant gratification is important to corporates and individual consumers,” says Theocharides. “Today’s consumer is driven by an ‘I want it now’ mentality, and we’re here to deliver exactly that. We guarantee a collection time of 90 minutes. To date we haven’t missed one.”

1Fetch will collect within a 20km radius of Sandton but will deliver anywhere in the greater Johannesburg area. “So for collection we’ll go up to Gold Reef City in the south, north up to Midrand, east until Germiston and west just past Randburg,” says Psillos.

Hands-on management

Theocharides, a qualified chartered accountant, began his career in investment banking in the late 1990s and spent close to 15 years in the investment banking and financial services space. He has been involved in several entrepreneurial endeavours across a range of sectors including financial services, property and technology. Psillos, also a qualified chartered accountant, spent eight years in the financial services arena, including corporate finance, private equity and financial markets.

The founders are proud of their hands-on management approach, crediting it for their success thus far. They're both intrinsically involved in the business and Psillos is responsible for driving the operation.

“The fact that we employ our own bikers and own our own bikes does tick a lot of boxes. We’ve got complete quality control – we do a bike inspection every single morning and we interview every single driver personally, together with running background checks via an agency. There is a difference between controlling that process and outsourcing that process,” says Psillos.

Current and future growth

One of the recent developments is that 1Fetch is integrating its on-demand service offering into Afrihost’s ClientZone as an express courier option. Afrihost has incorporated a section powered by 1Fetch that will get the goods to their clients in the greater Johannesburg area within three hours. “We’re now integrating into retail e-commerce back-end systems which allows us to offer an express delivery option in the greater Johannesburg area,” says Psillos.

BigWorld Mobile is another of the company’s clients, and 1Fetch offers delivery at similar cost to traditional couriers but delivers instantly on an order being placed, as opposed to a few days.

The company plans to expand across South Africa soon.