If you’re only taking carry-on luggage the next time you travel, Shelvie Fernan wants to talk. It will buy your checked baggage capacity and pay you up to $1,400 for it.
Fernan is the CEO and co-founder of Fly and Fetch, an Edmonton-based startup that aims to be the next big sharing economy company to disrupt a traditional business sector, similar to what Uber did in the transportation industry.
Fernan is targeting airmail.
“I and my team are hacking into international shipping by hiring travelers to transport packages for us rather than using air freight,” said Fernan, who buys unused checked baggage from airline passengers to transport packages to. remote locations since 2019.
By doing so, Fernan can offer cheaper overseas shipping than traditional couriers, which she says is an important service for Filipino Canadians like her who frequently send items to and from the Philippines.
“One day I realized that we don’t really use FedEx because it’s too expensive, or DHL because we’re just looking for friends and family to come home. We’ve been doing this for decades” , Fernan said.
Crab cake and wedding shoes
Precious Simpao, a restaurant supervisor in Red Deer, Alberta, has used the service more than 10 times to ship items to herself from Manila: jewelry, cosmetics, dresses and even a few jars of crab paste.
“I had this urge…it’s a taste of home, that’s why.”
Last year, Simpao sent a smartphone to his father in the Philippines. It arrived in three days and cost him $37 to ship from Edmonton.
Cost of life compared the price of shipping an iPhone 13 in a padded envelope using one of four traditional couriers: Purolator, FedEx, DHL and UPS.
Sending the package in the same amount of time from Calgary to Manila would cost between $175 and $500.
Why is it so expensive to ship things?
It all comes down to overhead, and international shipping has a lot of that: storefronts where customers can drop off packages, warehouses to sort and store mail, delivery vans to pick up and drop off packages, rising price of fuel and planes, which are very expensive.
“Last time I checked, a large cargo plane like a Boeing 747 was going to cost you about $300 million,” said Thomas Goldsby, a logistics expert and professor at the University of Tennessee’s Haslam College of Business. Knoxville.
In 2022, FedEx operated 697 aircraft.
“The planes are very expensive, the facilities are expensive, and all the people you have to employ to maintain and operate that equipment, very expensive. And so you have a very hefty fixed cost proposition in front of you,” Goldsby said.
But with a crowdshipping model like Fly and Fetch, most of these fixed costs can be eliminated from the equation. Shippers drop off and travelers pick up at employee homes, known as “hubs,” eliminating the need for the company to pay rent and utilities at physical locations.
So whether you fly to Manila in business or economy class, the offer is the same: from $125 to $1,400, depending on the distance traveled and the amount you are willing to pay.
This is called crowdshipping
The Fly and Fetch model, known as crowd-shipping or crowdshipping, is new to Canada, but has already been tried in other jurisdictions with varying degrees of success.
European startup PiggyBee was one of the first to appear in 2012, followed by US app AirWayBill. Both have since folded.
However, some have found success.
Roadie, which matches gig-economy drivers with deliveries to places they were already traveling, continues to grow. The company draws attention in 2015 for using American breakfast chain Waffle House as a neutral meeting place for drivers and shippers. UPS bought the company for an undisclosed amount in 2021.
Read the fine print
There are no regulations or laws under Transport Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) that prevent airline passengers from carrying items for other people in their checked baggage – unless it either prohibited or illegal.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson said the CBSA “recognizes that it is not an uncommon practice for friends or family members to ship goods to Canada via international travelers. “, but travelers are responsible for complying with all customs requirements, including payment of duties and taxes.
Cost of life8:45The growth of crowdsourced parcel shipping
Another issue the CBSA has pointed out, as has Alfred Chase – Compliance Manager for Border Brokers – is that a traveler carrying items for others could be construed as a “commercial carrier” and be required to leave the goods through airport customs until cleared. through normal channels.
In an email, Chase said travelers can also face fines for unknowingly transporting goods worth more than $2,000, or for transporting any of “thousands of types of different goods controlled by nine different departments”, beyond the obvious exclusion of controlled items like firearms.
Chase added that even something as simple as missing a meat inspection certificate on a single can of beef stew could result in a $500 penalty.
“Some people will see this as a quick win or a cut on their vacation costs and not think of the repercussions if something goes wrong. There’s a reason airports ask you not to carry someone else’s bag. ‘other.”
Fernan said his company ensures that travelers do not carry items over the authorized limit and do not ship prohibited or restricted items such as tobacco, alcohol, controlled drugs , weapons or currency over $10,000.
Also, she said, shippers’ packages are transported unsealed so travelers can inspect every item they take on their flight and refuse anything they don’t want to bring.
With Fly and Fetch, everything is packed in a cardboard box, separate from personal items like toothpaste and underwear. Travelers deposit the boxes in the baggage area and take their flight.
But passengers won’t be paid until they remove the boxes from the baggage carousel and hand them over to a Fly and Fetch employee who will meet them at the airport.
Fly and Fetch packs these boxes to the brim – the maximum weight allowed for a single checked bag, typically 23 kilograms. On international flights, most airlines allow passengers to check two bags free of charge.
Goldsby thinks that’s how the company is able to keep prices low and make a profit – it’s found a loophole that allows travelers to take full advantage of the cost of their airfare.
The growing air cargo sector
According to a new report from Deloitte, the volume of air cargo loaded and unloaded in Canada could increase by nearly one million tonnes by 2025. The study also suggests that airports, airlines and global delivery companies of Canada will need to invest in logistics infrastructure to meet the growing demand for international shipping.
Seeing the opportunity, Fly and Fetch is increasing its Canadian drop-off points and expanding its routes. But even if it’s capable of undermining competition, Deloitte’s Dejan Markovic isn’t convinced that crowdshipping can ever replace traditional shipping methods.
“It probably won’t do much damage,” said Markovic, the company’s national aviation chief. “When it comes to the shipping giants – the FedEx, the Purolators of the world – they’re Goliaths, aren’t they? They have a ton of product, a ton of demand, and a ton of capacity as well.”
Fernan said she had something these “shipping giants” don’t. Something she believes is more important.
“The Filipino community, we’re very close to them and they kind of feel attached to us because it’s not just transactional,” she said.
“Like, I asked my dad to deliver a package for us from Edmonton to Red Deer. I was like, ‘Can you just drop it off there? Because it’s like a special case for us. ‘”
When his father dropped off the package, the customer invited him to dinner and they ended up hanging out for hours.
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