One-hour and same-day delivery marketplace for businesses, Rapidus (https://www.rapidus.com/), recently announced a beneficial partnership with Shopify that includes the convenient last-mile delivery-solutions app for use by Shopify business. Rapidus is a leader of innovative B2B delivery solutions, matching business customers with professional delivery partners and providing fast, trackable, convenient, and guaranteed deliveries across California, Colorado, Washington, and Texas, with growing areas in Georgia, Florida, and Oregon. Rapidus provides one-hour and same-day, last-mile delivery for a wide variety of industries and already has a strong footprint with many mid-market companies.

“We’re excited and happy to announce our mutual partnership with Shopify,” said Rapidus CEO, Olexandr Prokhorenko. “It makes perfect sense, considering the strong e-commerce demand lately for professional and cost-effective local delivery services – which has always been our specialty. Our delivery service will complement the flexible and scalable online selling store experience of Shopify merchants.  We’ve been steadily expanding and widening our service area, by adding to a growing and varied stable of trusted delivery providers who can offer their professional services at a much more competitive rate than traditional courier services.”

Rapidus: Proven Local Delivery Advantages

The Rapidus app (that is available for free from Shopify App Store at https://apps.shopify.com/same-day-local-delivery) has been integrated and scaled to work directly with Spotify merchant customers, offering the same advantages enjoyed by Rapidus’s current users: a large choice of highly trained, professional and multi-agency certified delivery partners, transparency, and a low-priced, seamless experience. Other advantages of Rapidus Spotify integration include:

1. Dynamically configures warehouse locations and predefines work days, hours, and holidays in advance.
2. Offers a flexible choice of delivery services, with custom pickup and delivery time slots adjusted to specific business requirements.
3. Provides instant quotes in the cart and from the store dashboard.
4. Automated delivery placement during the fulfillment process; advanced notifications via text messages and emails, as desired.
5. Real-time tracking, current ETAs, and a full chain-of-custody including signatures, photos, geo-tagging, and more.

Rapidus local delivery services are provided for Shopify merchants with no contracts or subscription fees and charged on an on-demand basis. Rapidus currently works with and is trusted by over 6,000 businesses: high-tech industries, major airlines, medical and bioscience companies, construction, printing, legal, food, engineering, retail, warehousing, manufacturing, and more.

About Rapidus

Launched in 2016, Rapidus was founded to challenge the business delivery status quo with innovation and unmatched focus on customers. Offering a vast network of everyday delivery partners with unused cargo capacity, Rapidus matches those to customers to who need delivery services in its growing, multi-state service area. Connected via technology with local and global destinations, drivers within targeted neighborhoods continuously recycle unused ground and air transport capacities to establish solid, reliable deliveries anywhere in the service area – 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Rapidus delivery marketplace offers a low cost of carrier switching with a greater choice of delivery agents, complete visibility at every step of a supply chain, cost-effectiveness, convenience, and seamless experience.

Media Contact

Olexandr Prokhorenko, CEO
Rapidus Inc.
650.488.7447
[email protected]

We’re living in a strange time. The outbreak of COVID-19 has left the US public in an eerily quiet state. Schools and businesses close, events are canceled, and folks walk down empty streets in masks and gloves.

Amidst all of the strangeness, however, we can see a trend developing – one that expands upon ideas that have been forming for years. As 2020 moves forward, it’s clear that full-time jobs, with all of their benefits and drawbacks, may not be the norm much longer. Shocks like the coronavirus tend to interrupt the status-quo and make room for change, particularly with the new economic policies announced by Trump on March 11. In this case, it looks like part of that change will be in the form of popularized contractor work.

We’ve already seen many companies move their workforce to a work-from-home model as a defense against the virus, which goes to show that the tools and technology to quickly onboard new workers, whether part-time or gig workers, are available, and only getting better. As they improve, many businesses will find that they can improve their profitability by switching to such systems.

Those looking to try their hand at contracting work in the past few years have been essentially funneled toward Uber or Lyft, both of which emphasize how flexibly and easily one can make money on their platform. But with the world in its current state, there are more than a few reasons one may not be so keen to sit in a small space with a stranger.

Enter package delivery.

Companies like Amazon and Rapidus are beginning to draw just as much attention from the contractor scene as Uber and Lyft, and for good reason. The option to earn income for dealing with boxes and parcels instead of people is rather attractive when you consider the following.

For one thing, it’s a lot safer. In times of outbreak like this, and during any cold and flu season, sitting in a closed space as someone behind you sniffles and coughs and fills your shared air with infectious particles is not on anyone’s list of favorite activities. You never know who is getting in your car, nor the state of their health.

With packages, it’s as simple as handling them with gloves or using hand sanitizer. You don’t have to cringe into the windshield, and they don’t have to be embarrassed each time they exhale.

Along with not carrying infectious diseases, packages are also just easier to deal with in general. They aren’t backseat drivers, they won’t make a mess of your car, and they certainly won’t care what type of music you play. Suddenly, your vehicle is your own again, and you’re still making money.

In terms of compensation, delivering packages instead of driving people around eliminates some of the uncertainty. Driving packages means relying on a steady income rather than wondering if the irritating, coughing lady in the backseat will ti[p.

Unlike a lot of full-time professions, the need for delivery drivers is only increasing. Even on a good day, our society craves ever-more-instant gratification, but with a virus outbreak on the rise, people will be even more unwilling to leave their homes to shop, visit restaurants, or pick up mail. This results in fewer people, but more packages traveling. That’s where you come in. Job security in a position like this is high.

Times are changing, and though the uncertainty can be daunting at times, we can, and will, adapt. Shocks like the coronavirus will push our society to move in a new direction. We just have to be ready to go with it.

Meanwhile, Rapidus is helping businesses by enabling remote work throughout the COVID-19 outbreak period with one-hour and same-day delivery for businesses, 24/7/365.

San Mateo, Calif., Tuesday, January 21, 2020 – Rapidus, a leading marketplace of end-to-end delivery solutions that matches business customers with excess cargo capacity, today announced it has been selected as a professional delivery partner to bring its technology and innovation to Alaska Airlines and its operations in California.

Rapidus will focus on transporting baggage that may have been delayed between stations and/or to customers, bringing exact, minute-by-minute estimates of delivery times, a full chain of custody and cost efficiencies to each delivery. Alaska Airlines flies more than 44 million customers a year across a route system that spans more than 115 destinations.

“Today’s agreement enables Rapidus to help Alaska Airlines meet its customers’ needs with the service quality, innovative technology and cost-effectiveness of the expandingRapidus network of couriers,” said Olexandr Prokhorenko, Chief Executive Officer of Rapidus.

Prokhorenko said Rapidus is committed to help Alaska Airlines improve the quality of its customer service by expediting the delivery of baggage and other items to customers at times when speed often is of the essence.

He added that the company’s investment in technology and innovation, coupled with its commitment to flawless execution, helped lead to its selection by Alaska Airlines.

Prokhorenko, a senior product management veteran of such successful startup companies as Splunk (NASDAQ: SPLK) and Zuora (NYSE: ZUO) – both now publicly listed — co-founded Rapidus in 2018 to match shippers with professional delivery partners and currently operates across California, Colorado and Washington State.

Rapidus’ client base includes more than 6,000 small, medium and large businesses in such sectors as technology, airline, medical, bioscience, engineering, retail, warehousing, hospitality, and manufacturers, among others. The company continues to expand rapidly, including among enterprises listed on the Fortune 500.

“Our goal is to match excess cargo capacity with clients locally so that our skilled delivery partners can meet a customer’s needs as quickly as possible,” said Prokhorenko. In 2019, the average time to pick up a delivery from the time of an initial request was 26 minutes, he said.

Service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week in targeted markets and customers can request deliveries via a wide range of technology types including the company’s website, mobile apps, text, messaging apps, and smart assistants like Amazon Echo and Apple’s Siri, all of which are synchronized across the Rapidus technology network.

In addition to more traditional deliveries, Rapidus is engineered to handle complex and sometimes uncommon business needs, including deliveries requiring compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), TransportationWorker Identification Credentials (TWIC), the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), insurance options, and a variety of certifications such as those around needle safety and tissue transfers in the medical field.

Prokhorenko, an original investor in Rapidus, originally led the product and engineering teams. He became CEO of the company in 2018. At Splunk, Prokhorenko built the company’s first enterprise application marketplace. His role at Zuora focused on the company’s strategy to provide software enabling businesses to launch and manage subscription-based services to increase recurring revenue and profitability.

About Rapidus

Rapidus was founded to challenge the status quo of the delivery business with innovation and an unmatched focus on business customers. Rapidus offers a virtually unlimited network of everyday delivery partners with unused cargo capacity and matches them to business customer needs for courier services. Connected by technology with local and global destinations, drivers in targeted neighborhoods help to recycle unused transport capacity on the ground or in the air and establish solid and reliable deliveries from anywhere to anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Rapidus Media Contact

Olexandr Prokhorenko
CEO, Rapidus Inc.
650.488.7447
[email protected]

There was once a successful entrepreneur who was able to build his business from nothing. He had managed to become a fashion stylist even though the fashion world had tried to blackball him because he wasn’t “one of them”. Regardless, his business grew every year. He donated to charities, continued to garner headlines, and he mingled with many other businessmen and businesswomen like him. 

He worked hard, and was proud of the fact that he had scaled his business from the ground up.

He began to use a courier service for some of his more high-profile clients that he kept in touch with on a personal level. His courier service was recommended by another executive in the business and everything was going smoothly. His business continued to grow, and he was happy with where things were headed.

However, one day; the courier service botched several deliveries. There were many socialites and celebrities upset with the CEO, because he had given him their word that their clothes would be ready for a high-profile gala. 

Where were their clothes?

Why weren’t they on time?

He didn’t have any answers for them. He had clearly trusted the wrong courier service.

When it came time for the courier service to accept responsibility – they refused and stated that there was nothing that they can do. They didn’t offer any real explanations or answers and didn’t seem to care whether he used their services again. This one decision cost the entrepreneur some of his most important clients, and his business was never the same.

He wondered why there wasn’t a better way. Surely, technology should make deliveries easier than ever. 

What had gone wrong? Did this courier service vet the drivers properly? Were the drivers distracted, or had they wasted time doing something else? Was he sabotaged by the courier service? Why was there no real transparency or accountability in the process? Why couldn’t the drivers explain where they were, and at what time? Was it a communication issue? 

What if this were you?

You might end up with more questions than answers, and hiring the wrong courier service can truly prove to be a horrible business decision.

You may not be this person, but there are many people that have been this man at one point in time or another. They may have trusted courier service to handle their products, without truly understanding what they are also trusting them with their consumers, which can affect the reputation of their brand. The drivers acted in a way that made the customers look elsewhere, and a competing business ended up benefiting from the experience.

It might seem like a simple decision – and to be fair, it should be. Rapidus can make it more simple than ever. While there are many courier services that employ drivers that simply don’t live up to our standards of professionalism and courtesy, Rapidus only chooses the best. In fact, our platform automatically matches you with the driver closest to you with the BEST RATING. 

We appreciate your business and understand the importance of making sure the customer is satisfied and informed.

Rapidus isn’t here to hire those who simply are looking for a way to income. Often times, deliveries are made by people who clearly don’t appreciate the customer the way that they should. In fact, 28% of delivery workers have actually admitted to eating a customer’s food at one point or another.

Of course, you’ve probably had experiences where the issues were obvious. The driver may have forgotten some of your food, and there’s no real recourse when it comes to getting what you actually ordered. The food might have gotten shaken up during the delivery, or it might have gotten delivered so late that you don’t even want to eat it anymore.

This isn’t acceptable at Rapidus. We pride ourselves on offering up drivers that go above and beyond, which is how we strengthen relationships with our clients and continue to grow with businesses. 

Rapidus drivers are professional, courteous, and act as independent contractors. This is how we differentiate ourselves from the competition, where courier services might hire anyone who walks through the door. This simply isn’t sustainable if you truly care about your company’s reputation.

Our drivers accept delivery requests, you receive all of the information necessary, and we boast an average delivery pickup time of only 26 minutes! There are plenty of courier services that are eager to take your money but don’t want to actually provide exceptional service.

Rapidus believes in hiring the most professional and capable drivers possible and providing a seamless and integrated platform to make things easier for clients than ever before.

This doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be frustrating.

You can be informed and IN THE LOOP with Rapidus, instead of relying on a fly-by-night service that could care less about you, your company, or your customers.

You shouldn’t need to contact a courier service to make sure that they are doing their job – Rapidus drivers know what their job is, and are happy to complete it on time with a smile!

Rapidus isn’t just about the BEST SERVICE, either, it’s also about the BEST PRICE! 

Did you know that Rapidus actually offers a PRICE GUARANTEE? We aren’t just serious about hiring the best drivers, we want them to be cheaper for our clients than ever before. It’s no surprise that Rapidus is gaining clients in Colorado and California left and right, thanks to these selling points.

We often offer quotes that are up to 30% more affordable than the competition!

Rapidus doesn’t like knowing that there are courier services out there that charge extra fees just to make an extra buck. It’s already tough enough to be an entrepreneur these days, and these unexpected surprises are not honorable or acceptable. That’s why we offer the obvious alternative, and we are sure that you will find our service more reliable and professional than any other courier service that you have ever used.

BETTER SERVICE + BETTER PRICES = HAPPIER CUSTOMERS!

When it comes to scaling a business, many entrepreneurs find that there are so many moving parts that they didn’t really consider when they first had the idea or spark for their business. For example, individuals might realize that the wrong marketing campaign or adding the wrong features to their platform might affect customer retention, which affects revenue, which affects whether a business can truly survive or not. 

That’s why it’s extremely important to find the right partners to choose when it comes to business. If you are trying to cut costs for customer service, and decide to outsource certain processes – you have to make sure that you aren’t compromising when it comes to quality and service. After all, there is evidence that suggests that customer service might be the determining factor as to whether a company is actually recommended to other people.

Rapidus understands that entrepreneurs have their own issues to deal with when it comes to scaling their business. While there are plenty of courier services out there, many of them simply don’t have the dedication and expertise to meet your customer’s expectations. Luckily, Rapidus is here to help. We offer PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS that know what they are doing, which makes all the difference.

RAPIDUS MARKETPLACE OFFERS:

• PRICE GUARANTEE
• RELIABLE DRIVERS
• 24/7 SERVICE AND SUPPORT

We have all been in a situation where we have waited longer than we had hoped for a package. In fact, you may have had to cancel a meeting with a friend or a professional phone call to make sure that you were there to accept the package. It certainly isn’t a good feeling, knowing that a business could not keep its word. After all, we often order packages to be delivered to SAVE TIME – so it can create a very negative customer experience when it arrives late, or when there are other issues with the delivery.

TRANSPARENCY

Your business is constantly trying to attract new customers while retaining existing ones, which means that you have to prove yourself to be extremely reliable and cater to their needs and desires. One of the real advantages of Rapidus is that we are so transparent when it comes to the chain of custody, so you will never be worried about where your package is or what your drivers are doing.

Rapidus boasts over 10,000+ verified drivers that are focused and determined on making sure that your business is able to reach its customers. In fact, the entire process is streamlined, because Rapidus connects you to the HIGHEST RATED DRIVER that is CLOSEST TO YOU, as soon as possible. In fact, you can even view the full history of all deliveries of a certain account, complete with driver ratings, as well. 

REAL RELIABILITY

Business owners are always looking for the simplest solution that makes the most sense. The last thing that any entrepreneur wants to deal with is realizing that after all their hard work, a courier service has damaged an expensive package that was supposed to be delivered to a customer. It’s not just about one mistake – this actually has real consequences for your company.

• Trust Is Lost: The customer no longer believes any “guarantee” of yours, now that they have received a package that has been damaged. This often takes a tremendous amount of time and money to rectify, and businesses often have to offer something in return just to regain trust in the consumer.
• Profit Is Lost: A negative customer experience is not just about a bad review, or word spreading about your reputation. It also means that actual money is lost in the transaction and that your company will have to adjust to make sure that their bottom line is intact.
• Employee Morale: Oftentimes, situations like this also lead your employees to question whether they should work for an organization where customers are more appreciated. While one incident certainly might not lead to an employee leaving, a repeated lack of respect for the customer can take its toll on overall morale.

We understand that businesses want to maintain a certain PEACE OF MIND when it comes to their operations. Our drivers are extremely professional, and a tracking number is submitted as soon as a delivery request is made. In fact, to ensure maximum safety, the driver’s information (including their photo and name) is provided, as well. As if all of this wasn’t enough, REAL-TIME TRACKING can help you feel better about knowing that your customers will be taken care of.

Imagine that you are excited about the fact that you hired a courier service for a significant amount of deliveries during the weekend. You reached out to the courier service at the last minute, but they respond, and you’re ready to handle the business! However, you find out that the products haven’t been delivered on time.

You reach out to the company, but they don’t respond.

Your customer is calling, furious.

You’re frustrated, and can’t even reach the driver that was supposed to be reliable and professional, but clearly is neither. You paid a courier service to deliver a product that wasn’t delivered, and now you have to repair a relationship with an angry customer.

It’s a story that happens far too often – but Rapidus can make sure that it’s never YOUR story again! We focus on transparency, accountability, and reliability.

NO MORE sketchy courier services.

NO MORE excess fees and ridiculous prices: our PRICE GUARANTEE takes care of that!

NO MORE questions: real-time tracking and notifications.

You can finally deal with a company that has the answers that you need. If you found a lower price? Great – we’ll beat it. If you need to know more about your driver? The information is available. Need to check up on logistics? Real-time tracking can help. Rapidus has tailored itself to make sure that it can answer all of your questions at any time, and can get your products where they need to go, even during an EMERGENCY situation.

Warren Buffett is one of the most successful (and richest) people in the world. Here’s a quote from him:

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” 

This is a man that truly understands the value of a company’s reputation. Why should you waste your time dealing with drivers that don’t understand how to be professional and courteous? Rapidus even offers the price guarantee, so trying to “cut costs” isn’t even a valid excuse! Rapidus is MORE PROFESSIONAL and COSTS LESS!

If you want to keep your customers happy, you need professional drivers that understand how to deliver, time and time again. Our intuitive platform makes it easier for business owners to make sure that everything is handled, the way it should be – the FIRST time.

Technology has forever changed the way that human beings think about products and services, and it has helped make life more convenient for people all around the world. Businesses want to reach the consumer quicker than ever. The companies that are able to deliver quicker and more efficiently will undoubtedly gain market share, while businesses who take their time when it comes to the consumer will eventually get lost in the mix.

As a business owner, you might realize that a courier service is an obvious way to grow. However, it’s easy to be skeptical. We know that there are businesses that already deliver as part of their business model, such as pizza restaurants, for example. In this case, the business survives due to the fact that couriers are able to reach customers quickly, are able to supplement their income with tips, and the business recognizes that reaching customers this way will affect their future reputation and growth.

The subscription box model is growing significantly which is also proof that consumers are looking for products and services to be delivered to their front door. After all, it takes time, money, and energy to visit physical retail locations and actually browse the inventory. The Internet allows individuals to browse goods, press a button on a smartphone, and receive the products. 

The fact that Nordstrom, an actual chain of luxury stores in the United States, paid $350 million for Trunk Club in 2014, is proof that the subscription box model is changing the way that consumers purchase their goods. It’s also a testament to the fact that an individual with a crowded personal and professional life might prefer the model because of its convenience and the fact that it saves an immense amount of time. Of course, the fact that Uber Eats has become an important source of revenue for the ride-hailing startup, Uber, is also proof that customers are expecting more from companies with respect to delivery.

Rapidus understands that courier services can help your company scale in a new way and penetrate new markets. One of the reasons that we are gaining traction is because we offer fair pricing for our services, while other companies might be searching for quick profits rather than long-term collaboration. 

We already boast over tens of thousands of drivers, happy to make sure that your business isn’t left hanging when it comes to same-day and 1-hour delivery. We know that business often doesn’t sleep, which is why we are available for you 24/7, at a fair price.

We also understand that your customers expect their delivery quickly without it affecting the price significantly, which is why we work with businesses to make sure that our pricing is fair and reasonable. We also offer a 100% price guarantee which makes business easier and more convenient for our clients than ever!

One of the problems when it comes to pricing is that businesses might want to save money without realizing that they are hiring a courier service that frankly doesn’t know what they are doing. The delivery drivers might not be as reliable as they had hoped, which can affect customer retention and lead to bad reviews that affect their business in the long-term. Your customers might look elsewhere to fulfill their needs.

Rapidus is all about providing local and professional drivers that are consistently reliable so that your business can benefit from our courier service. This also means that we make sure that the pricing is fair enough so we can compensate our drivers while also saving businesses money, and we are transparent with our pricing so that no issues arise down the line.

Rapidus offers rush delivery that is up to 35% cheaper than many other courier services. This is incredible when you realize that Rapidus is even available for situations where delivery is required in one-hour! Rapidus also offers same-day delivery service, as well. 

This is important when you realize that market leaders such as Amazon make it so that customers expect delivers faster and cheaper than ever. In fact, around 60% of shoppers browse for products specifically based on their shipping preferences.

Customers also want convenience without necessarily paying extra, which is why Rapidus and its fair pricing can help drive revenue and growth. In fact, there is an incredible opportunity for companies to take advantage of consumer demand. Specifically, 55% of customers remain interested in two-hour delivery, but 59% attribute high prices as the reason for “delivery dissatisfaction”. 

While it might not seem logical or fair – companies often have to cater to consumers and their demands in order to survive. This puts companies in a position to find a reliable courier service that is also affordable – and luckily, Rapidus is here to help.

Every business has different challenges when it comes to the type of demographic that they are targeting, or what their customers will pay. Rapidus can help ensure that pricing will always be transparent so that you don’t have to second-guess the numbers or spend time analyzing how it will affect your bottom line. Our customers have also praised the fact that the user experience is seamless in addition to our competitive prices. You can schedule deliveries simply with a couple of taps, and the price will be clear up front.

Rapidus: Reliability, Transparency, And Efficiency.

Rapidus isn’t interested in charging you hidden fees. We simply want to make sure that companies can reach the customer as quickly and conveniently as possible. We also believe that our pricing is great for companies that want to build a long-term relationship and understand that other courier services are simply out for a quick profit. We know that there are plenty of companies in industries that are often fighting over thin profit margins, and believe that our service can do a lot in terms of overall customer satisfaction and retention. Contact Rapidus today for more information about our service and rates.