uShip, the global online transport marketplace, today announced the acquisition of boxby.co.uk, the UK’s first web site to offer a transport exchange for couriers. The transaction provides UK house removal firms and eBay couriers access to more delivery jobs, helping them run full and more efficiently as they battle rising fuels costs and VAT increases.
The http://boxby.co.uk site will remain active throughout the incorporation of key uShip processes and functionality. Boxby co-founder Sandra Patterson will serve as a uShip consultant.
“Boxby has done an outstanding job organically establishing itself within a competitive UK courier services market,” said Matt Chasen, CEO and founder uShip. “Acquiring Boxby directly supports uShip’s current global expansion by helping to build on our already explosive UK growth, which has jumped 300 percent since last year.”
Ayrshire, Scotland-based Boxby and uShip operate similar and complementary businesses: each matches customers’ deliveries with extra space in transporters’ vans, resulting in fewer empty lorries on the road and more affordable delivery costs. Research shows a quarter to half of UK lorries operate virtually empty, while using uShip saves customers an average of 40-50 percent.
Sandra and Alistair Patterson started Boxby in 2007 after operating the online Lochryan Furniture Store for 20 years. By selling items through their website and eBay, they found that in nearly all cases, items sold were too large, too valuable or too heavy to post. Seeing the need, they created the Boxby delivery business. Today, over 2,500 couriers are registered on Boxby.
Read the post on AustinStartup.
