Popular e-commerce sites such as Shopify and Etsy enable small business owners to sell their products worldwide. However, exorbitant shipping costs can still present barriers when such businesses attempt to enter new markets. Deliveri aims to cut these and other costs for small businesses by offering shipping discounts, label creation, branded tracking page templates, and more.
This Cary-based startup was founded in April of 2024 by serial entrepreneur (and now CEO) Jason Brown—whose previous startup experience had introduced him to various issues that make the e-commerce space difficult for small business owners to navigate.
Brown’s last startup, Shipal, is another e-commerce logistics company, based in Latin America. His experience running this company and navigating the e-commerce space made him realize there was “a bigger opportunity at play.”
Specifically, Brown noticed that while there has been improvement in the quality of goods coming out of Latin America, small-business owners face many hurdles—such as high shipping prices and long delays—when selling products internationally. In his time with Shipal, Brown said he experienced these issues firsthand and was motivated to find a solution.
Brown said many people who buy items on sites like Etsy don’t realize that the items are often coming from overseas, and that it may take upwards of a month to receive purchases. This is not merely a consequence of distance, but rather is often due to the fact that the seller didn’t ship the package in such a way as to get it through customs efficiently. Deliveri can help with that.
How Deliveri Works
First and foremost, this startup enables small business owners to print shipping labels themsleves. This in turn decreases the amount of time packages spend in transit.
Brown said that shipping logistics can be a thorn in the side of small-business owners who would rather focus their time and energy on creating and advertising their products.
“Sometimes the shipping is more than the cost of goods, and [they] don’t want to spend any time figuring out a better solution,” he said.
Transporting goods internationally can be very expensive, and small businesses don’t often qualify for shipping discounts because they don’t generate enough monthly shipments to be of interest to large couriers who may otherwise offer such discounts.
Deliveri’s solution comes down to the simple notion of strength in numbers. While 100 shipments a month from one small business may be of little interest to a large courier, 10,000 shipments a month across 100 businesses are enticing. By bringing together a large number of small businesses, Deliveri can collectively bargain with couriers to obtain significant shipping discounts—which the company can then resell to their users.
While this alone offers a significant benefit to small businesses, burdensome shipping costs aren’t the only issue Deliveri has set out to solve.
Brown indicated that there is also a high level of distrust between foreign buyers and sellers due to issues like language barriers, complicated return processes, and buyers’ inability to track shipments. Deliveri aims to rebuild this trust by providing business tools for users at a monthly cost. These tools include branded tracking pages and customer notifications, both of which keep buyers updated on the status and location of shipped packages.
“Our customer is someone who has a real affinity towards their brand,” Brown said. “It’s not the drop shipper, it’s not the guy who is importing [random goods] just to sell it. [It’s] somebody who actually identifies with their brand.”
QUICK BITS
Startup: Deliveri
Founder: Jason Brown (CEO)
Founded: 2024
Team size: 5
Location: Cary, NC
Website: https://ondeliveri.com/
Funding: Raising pre-seed
Brown emphasized the need for trust between the customer and the seller; Deliveri’s branded tracking page templates are designed to create a better customer experience and build trust with each transaction.
“With the branded tracking pages, we give our customers the ability to service themselves, so it’s like self-serve,” Brown said. “So if I need to issue a return, you can just go to that tracking page and file a return.”
Having recently wrapped its participation in the inaugural FCAT Fellowship, the startup aims to launch in the United States early in 2025 and in Mexico and Columbia around Q2, with a goal to service every country in the Western Hemisphere within five years.
Deliveri is currently focused on building its user base via pre-launch sign-ups; the startup will provide $15 toward a first shipment for customers who sign up before launch.
