Bid for Same-Day Delivery Taps the Smartphone Boom
Numerous start-ups have tried to go after the Holy Grail of e-commerce — delivering things to people’s homes and offices on the same day they ordered them — and have failed.
Postmates Inc., a San Francisco Internet start-up that launched its same-day delivery service in December, is hoping to succeed by tying its business to the proliferation of smartphones.
“We want to do for intracity commerce what FedEx did for overnight shipping across the country,” says Postmates Chief Executive Bastian Lehmann. “We’re definitely not blind” to the history of failed delivery start-ups, he says, “but we’re not afraid.”