Two years with Velove last mile delivery
Velove was founded in 2015 and in 2017 we started selling our revolutionary e-cargobike, the Armadillo. It won the heavy category in the first ever Cargobike of the Year award in 2019, which we are still very proud of. The jury especially liked the riding quality, which they said was on a completely different level compared to other heavy cargobikes, and the containerised logistics process.
However, we learned that many of our customers struggled with making a large scale shift from vans to e-cargobikes. They had challenges finding city hubs, a cost effective middle mile solution, recruiting riders and getting sufficient uptime on the bikes.
So, in the beginning of 2020 we decided that we should take care of all of these pains and offer a complete last mile delivery service instead of just selling/leasing/renting hardware.
We are now a vertically integrated last mile delivery company, developing our own hardware and software, setting up neighbourhood hubs and middle mile transport, recruiting and training riders and maintaining and repairing our fleet of Armadillo e-cargobikes.
This has been a big change for us. How has it all worked out? Well, it seems our analysis was right. The customer response has been great, they are very happy that we solve all their challenges and we have been able to scale their e-cargobike use.
We are so far present in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Copenhagen with in total seven neighbourhood hubs. We passed one million deliveries a while ago. Every workday we are taking out around 40 vans from the city centres of these cities. And we are of course just getting started!
The biggest change has not been setting up hubs and middle mile, developing new hardware and software or developing new logistics, maintenance and repair processes. The central piece has been our riders, the ones actually performing the deliveries in all weather, all year around, with high productivity and high customer satisfaction. We have put a lot of effort into finding the right riders, training them well, providing a place to work that is safe, friendly and where everything just works -and with fair pay.
Our workplace can be endlessly improved, but we do get some great feedback:
“In general, I am extremely content with this job. It works well together with studies, I get a lot of new friends, I get chances to take on more responsibilities and develop and it’s paid exercise. 10/10!”
“I really appreciate the atmosphere in Velove - everyone is very friendly and polite! I noticed that is a very important factor as I used to work in places where people always hushed you whenever you had a question or anything…”
Our mission from the very beginning has been to replace as many motor vehicles as possible with e-cargobikes, thereby reducing CO2 emissions and making cities more liveable. With this business model pivot, we are beating vans and doing it!
