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Over 90 per cent of the world’s trade is carried by sea – so how do you think these billions of shipments get booked? Well, until recently, each and every one had to be arranged over the phone. "The shipping lines do a lot of tech, but it’s boat technology, not internet," explains Charles Lee. "It usually takes around 60 emails and 20 phone calls to ship one container."
Lee is co-founder of Kontainers, a startup hoping to change that by letting shippers book online via its website. "The Expedia of shipping," is how it describes itself, and while the comparison is largely hopeful at this stage, you can see the reasoning. By providing rates, schedules and booking in a one-stop online package, Kontainers is trying to do to shipping what Expedia and Skyscanner have done to flying and travel: cut out the existing middlemen and install its website in their place. "We’ve digitised the entire process," says Lee. "You come on to our site, you type in your pickup location and destination and it gives you a quote in seconds."
To book space on cargo ships, retailers and manufacturers usually go through a freight forwarder, the shipping equivalent of a travel agent. These companies oversee every aspect of the shipment, from trucking to customs to finding the best price for shipping. "You ring five or six of them, you get a rate and then you try and negotiate and compare," explains Lee. "The business model revolves around not telling people what they need to know."
Kontainers, which has raised $1.3 million (£850,000) in seed funding, acts as a freight forwarder, but its primary point of contact is its website, where it collects weekly updates from carriers and aggregates them to provide a range of quotes. "We filter around a million trucking rates and 25 million shipping schedules and rates and give you a list of 20," says Lee.
Since its launch in January 2015, Kontainers has sent £50 million worth of goods to 63 countries for companies including Bosch and SHS Drinks, owners of alcopop brand WKD. "Last time they did three container loads of WKD down to Australia," says Lee. "That’s two or three thousand bottles."
Now Lee and co-founder Graham Parker have expanded their offer to include pallets as well as full container loads, accepting bookings for anything bigger than a metre cubed: "We aggregate them together and ship the container," explains Lee.
To counter competition from American firm Flexport, the pair opened a New York office in December 2015. Next, they plan to move to Asia and Dubai, partnering with removal companies to facilitate a smooth transfer from truck to ship.
After that, "air is the next thing," says Lee. He looks at the biggest freight forwarder in the world, which "does $20 billion of business", but is weighed down by its vast portfolio of warehouses and trucks. "Our ambition is to achieve the same amount," he says. "The difference is that we won’t own any of the assets."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
