Startup Circle: How is this logistics startup Shift Freight organizing the Movers and Packers sector?

Covid-19 has transformed the landscape for businesses across industries with impact varying as per the category of product or service. While some industries saw unprecedented growth and others faced a major setback. One such category was Logistics. Conceptualized in October 2019, Shift Freight, a logistic startup aims to solve the shifting issues of the city dwellers. They taking care of house shifting to smaller or few items and act as movers and packers aggregators.

In conversation with CiOL, Mr Avinash Raghav, Founder, Shift Freight talks on how the pandemic has reshaped their business and the Logistics industry. Further, over the past few months, the company has registered an overall MoM growth of over 100%; 50-70% MoM growth in terms of order and revenue. It also saw around 70 odd orders in June to nearly 1,000 orders by the end of 2020.

1. What is Shift Freight about? Tell us about the team.

Shift Freight is one of the latest players in the logistics segment in India. In less than a year since its launch, Shift Freight has already emerged as India’s fastest growing movers and packers aggregator. While most other industry players focus on the B2B segment, we cater directly to the end consumers in all their shifting needs. We rely heavily on the latest technological innovations to provide the services in the most organised manner possible in an otherwise disorganized and scattered sector. Shift Freight offers a cost-effective and secured service. We have onboarded several shift partners, who are verified and given a consignment based on a bidding system so that the consumers get the most competitive pricing and our shift partners also do not suffer from regard to the costing.

Our management team is referred to as Crazy-4, symbolizing the power of a collective team effort. Our current team consists of more than 60 members from across different departments.

2. How did you come up with the idea?

As it is said, necessity is the mother of invention. It so happened that a friend of mine and I were on the lookout for a shifting vendor in the Middle East and we faced a lot of problems. Our efforts made us realise that the existing state of the logistics industry in the Middle East, India or any other part of the globe is abysmal. Despite the availability of scores of aggregators, the end consumer failed to get any benefit as most players remained confined to the B2B segment. This made us think of the need as well as the opportunity of a consumer-centric state-of-the-art entity in the movers and packers segment.

We vowed that we would ensure customer satisfaction and indulge in a competition that is about the quality and not the quantity. Following this, the launch of Shift Freight came in February 2020 once we got the initial setups about technology and applications in place.

3. What are the changes you are bringing into the market?

The foremost change that we have brought in the market is keeping the customer first. Once customers reach out through our website or mobile application, they get a call back in as little as 10 minutes. To start with, we guide them in ascertaining the requirements based on the consignment to be moved. Following this, the same is shared with our shift partners through a bidding process, during which one with the lowest quotation is assigned the task. This system is a win-win for all. Apart from this, a dedicated ‘Customer Service Manager’ is assigned for every consignment, who apart from taking stock of each movement keeps the customers apprised till the last mile delivery. With the help of technology, we let our customers track each movement of their consignment in real-time.

Besides, we not just verify all our shift partners but also ensure that they comply with all our guidelines. This helps in bringing uniformity in our operations. We train them and give them uniforms. We are further helping them with soft loans to expand their businesses.

4. What is your business/market growth?

We have grown phenomenally since our launch last year. Due to the pandemic-induced lockdown, we started our official operations from June 2020. While in the first month of our operation, we registered a revenue of Rs 6 lakh, we ended the year 2020 by registered a revenue of Rs 60 lakh. The expected January revenue for Shift Freight is almost Rs 1 crore.

5. What has 2020 changed for Shift Freight? How are things now?

As a matter of fact, it’s 2020 that made us what we are today. The lockdown was announced almost immediately after we launched Shift Freight in February last year. It certainly appeared as a big jolt at the onset, but we turned that challenge into an opportunity. We made use of the lockdown phase to identify the gaps and streamline our services as well as technology. Each team member at Shift Freight worked relentlessly for as long as 18-20 hours each day.

Thankfully, the situation became conducive once the unlock phases were announced. As mentioned earlier, we have registered phenomenal growth over the past few months.

6. What are your plans?

Currently, we have entered the north and the south zones with centres in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. Very soon we are set to have our centres in at least 30 cities from across all parts of India. We also have plans to enter the US market towards the end of this year.

7. Funding

To launch our operations, we received an angel investment of USD 1 million from my long time friend and mentor Abdullah Ali Alzahrani. We do not have any other funding as of now.