Have you seen the bright green e-cargo bicycles speeding by? That’s not just any bike delivery service, but one that brings parcels to your door sustainably at a time convenient to you. Bas Faassen is always on the lookout for innovative ideas, and his concept for PIKE – your parcel whenever you like – fills a gap in the market.
“Your parcel will be delivered between 12.30 pm and 5.00 pm. We tried to deliver your parcel but you weren’t home, so we’ll try again. You can collect your parcel from your local service point.”
Do these scenarios sound familiar? Whilst searching for his passion in life, Bas noticed how fed up people around him were with these recurring delivery problems. And that inspired him to come up with a creative and sustainable solution.
“After doing a graduation work placement for sport marketing at Red Bull, I stayed on in their E-sport marketing department for another three years. It was perfect for me, because it was a new unit and I got loads of freedom to structure it. After closing that chapter, I started working for a property agent in Rotterdam. It was in that time that I had the idea for PIKE and started researching the market and setting up pitches.”
From his research, Bas learned that the parcel market has little regard for individuals or consumers. Enter PIKE: a service that delivers parcels to your doorstep – and lets you choose when.
“The idea arose by approaching it from the consumer point of view. When placing an order, you enter the PIKE address as your delivery address. We let you know in the app when we’ve received it and then you can tell us what time you’d like it to arrive. You can enter the specific time you want our bike delivery person to come to your door.”
After building his own demo website and app, Bas quickly attracted his first investor. In November 2020 he found premises off Hofplein and in late December PIKE went live.
“We’ve been in business for over a year now. Launching during lockdown forced us to get creative again, because suddenly everyone was at home all the time. Now we’re also working with companies in Rotterdam for which we’re their local parcel delivery service.”
What mattered most to Bas himself was organizing the delivery process to be as eco- conscious as possible. That’s easy to do in big urban areas, he says.
“We have a reach of five kilometres, from Hofplein to Kralingen, Kleiweg or to Rotterdam-West and Zuid. That’s all very doable for dropping off parcels by electric bike, and it saves a ton. Plus, with PIKE, parcels don’t go from a distribution centre out to a smaller centre to then be sent back to the same city again. So you’re contributing to multiple facets of sustainability.”
In future, Bas hopes merchants will do more of their own distribution so that the largest share of deliveries can be done sustainably. He’s also dreaming of expanding to other densely populated urban areas in the Netherlands, where there is still plenty to be gained.
If there’s one tip he’d like to share with everyone, it is: “Go ride electric!”