StoreToDoor offers retailers a platform to provide customers with same-day delivery services
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As far as growth goes, Scott Love’s new company has been able to deliver.
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StoreToDoor, which launched in late 2020, is a Regina-based tech startup that offers retailers a platform to provide customers with same-day delivery services. StoreToDoor is currently operating in 27 cities across Canada, and has 400 drivers working as contractors.
The company just closed its seed raise with $1.25 million from investors including Lex Capital Corp. in Regina, Golden Opportunities Fund in Saskatoon, Inverted Ventures in Calgary and several other angel investors from across Western Canada.
“We saw lots of great traction from investors locally here in the Saskatchewan ecosystem,” said Love, StoreToDoor’s founder and CEO.
Love initially got the idea for StoreToDoor while watching a TV program in 2019. He saw a business owner describing the challenge of getting their product out of brick and mortar stores and into customers’ hands in the same day. The next day he set about writing a business plan.
StoreToDoor has created a technology that can be integrated with point-of-sale or e-commerce platforms. Drivers are the other key component of StoreToDoor. While Amazon has popularized the convenience of same-day deliveries, it has attracted criticism for the treatment of drivers and how much pressure it puts on them to hit quotas.
Love said StoreToDoor does use a “gig economy” approach to its drivers, but has no delivery quotas and pays them a fair wage. Drivers receive approximately $7 per delivery, and some max out at making 10 deliveries per hour. The company recently started charging retailers a fuel surcharge, 100 per cent of which is passed along to drivers
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“They’re the most important piece of our business, so there’s no way that we would ever be cutting their throat because it would kill us. So we’ve got a different mentality than Amazon does. Amazon has to do it at a very cheap manner because the membership fee that they’re taking is very minimal,” said Love.
On the retailer side, Love said businesses are charged a flat fee for a delivery rather than a percentage. The types of retailers that StoreToDoor is most popular with includes pharmacies, grocery stores and cannabis retailers.
StoreToDoor’s biggest challenge right now will sound familiar to many tech companies in Saskatchewan, and that’s hiring.
In June of 2021, Love was the only employee, but there are now 18 full-time workers at the company. Still, there are six vacancies he’s having trouble filling for roles such as software engineers and sales positions. Love said the company is having to look outside Saskatchewan to fill the vacancies, but even then, it hasn’t been easy.
StoreToDoor’s largest region of customers is in Calgary, where it has 80 to 100 clients. The second-highest area is in Regina, with 35 clients. Love said approximately 80 per cent of StoreToDoor’s clients are local brands or independent stores.
Love has big plans for the company, but they don’t include leaving the province. He has his sights set on expanding into the United States, but keeping his feet planted in Regina in order to grow the local tech ecosystem. Love credited Innovation Saskatchewan and the Conexus’ startup incubator Cultivator for making StoreToDoor’s success possible.
“I love Regina. Our whole team does and we’re based here. We have all the facilities that are given to us to be able to use and take advantage of. It’s a great place to be,” said Love.
mmelnychuk@postmedia.com
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