Ivan Plyugachev, co-founder of the online hypermarket 21vek.by, told Myfin.by how the online store managed to launch and develop one of the most successful courier services in Belarus
“It all started with a Volkswagen Golf, in which Sergei Vainilovich and I delivered the first orders”
Having chosen a free niche and the most popular product groups on the market, we started with selling household appliances via the Internet. At night we worked on developing the store’s website, during the day we made sales, and in the evenings we delivered orders.
Our courier service began with a Volkswagen Golf, in which Sergey and I made our first deliveries. Gradually we expanded the team: after 5-6 months we were able to hire a courier. The first funds received were used to increase the product range, improve customer service and work on logistics.
“Then we realized: it is necessary to optimize costs and at the same time speed up delivery”
We contacted INFINIUM with a request for the need to introduce Artificial Intelligence into our logistics processes, which would predict transport flows, take into account the desires of our customers, our capabilities, manage delivery, lay out financially optimal routes, thereby influencing important performance indicators of the company. It also made it possible to effectively and transparently control the work of couriers.
We must give credit to the Belarusian developers: they took on this task and gradually solved it. Subsequently, the project evolved into the INFINIUM platform with one of its TMS LOGIMUS systems, which we included in our logistics processes.
“INFINIUM has created a system of notifying users about delivery times and displaying the arriving courier on the map. When we began to see financial results, we began to digitize all processes”
Today, the 21vek.by fleet includes more than 300 vehicles of various sizes, employing about 350 courier drivers. Thanks to well-established logistics, we can easily deliver orders same day in Minsk and deliver them the next day to any address throughout Belarus, provided that the required product is in the central warehouse.
Looking at our colleagues in neighboring countries, we see our high efficiency and innovation. And it’s very nice when our own IT industry creates products that allow our companies to outperform their foreign colleagues in terms of efficiency with their service and attitude towards customers.
