Shopopop, the revolutionary crowdshipping platform headquartered in France, has announced it is officially launching in the UK and has set the target of securing a partnership with at least one major UK-based retailer by the end of the year.
Shopopop’s move to the UK, Europe’s largest ecommerce market, represents an important step in the business’ international expansion strategy to become the world’s leading crowdshipping community.
Established in France in 2015 with the business recently achieving profitability, Shopopop has become Europe’s leader in crowdshipping. The business has over 115 employees and a community of over 350,000 private individuals (‘crowdshippers’) which deliver groceries and goods to over 30,000 people daily across local communities. Shopopop has domestic partnerships with over 25 retailers and brands across 7,500 stores, including Carrefour, E.Leclerc, Decathlon, Colruyt and Interflora. To date, Shopopop has completed over 17m deliveries across Europe.
Shopopop will now expand into the UK – Europe’s biggest e-commerce market – to accelerate the international growth of the business. The business has already initiated conversations with major retailers across the country (including Asda, Co-op, Kingfisher, Morrisons and Tesco) and aims to have an agreement in place with at least one major UK-based retail partner by the end of the year. Shopopop’s first partner is expected to benefit from being the inaugural retailer to offer this first-of-its-kind, community-focused delivery method for UK consumers.
With a well-documented shortage of delivery drivers in rural areas across the UK, Shopopop plans to scale its operations across the country and prove its model in these hard-to-reach communities where its community-driven approach is expected to have its biggest impact in making the delivery of groceries and goods accessible to everyone, regardless of location.
Johan Ricaut, Shopopop’s CEO and Co-Founder, commented: “We are incredibly excited about bringing our crowdshipping model to the UK which is a market we have long admired. The UK is known for embracing new online delivery methods and together with its strong sense of community, we see our platform as the ideal tool for rural and hard-to-reach communities to come together and support one another, forming meaningful relationships in the process.”
Antoine Truong, Shopopop’s Global Head of Retail, added: “Following numerous conversations with major retailers and a thorough analysis of the wider e-commerce delivery ecosystem in the UK, we are confident Shopopop’s community-focused approach can address some of today’s most pressing issues for last-mile deliveries throughout the country. In particular, we are looking forward to offering new solutions for consumers in rural areas to help them access the groceries and goods they require on a daily basis, delivered by trusted members of their community.”
