Comment by dexen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dexen | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

In Poland the dominant online marketplace is our domestic Allegro.pl. Started off in 1999 as eBay equivalent - mostly individuals selling new and used goods - but in recent years it developed more into direct competition with Amazon, by catering to shops and brands, purchasing and offering its own parcel delivery service (both courier service and pickup machines), and online payment processor. Just recently it even introduced equivalent of Amazon Prime.

Unfortunately I have no insights how Allegro managed to stay ahead of the global heavyweights. Probably combination of polish language UI and catering to specific needs of local market.

Currently while both eBay and Amazon have sizeable presence in Poland, the Allegro.pl is still the go-to place, and seems to be able to hold its own pretty well, up to and including expansion to neighboring CEC countries. Even the Amazon fulfillment center that opened in my city recently is mostly geared to handle the German market rather than polish.

> I have no insights how Allegro managed to stay ahead of the global heavyweights.

Two sided market places have substantial first mover advantage, to the point where a global competitor has no way to break into the market. The same happened in NL with 'Marktplaats', which was eventually bought by Ebay after an unsuccessful attempt at dislodging the incumbent.

It's true that Amazon's warehouses in Poland are only used for the German market. In theory that would mean that a drive to Polish market would be easy for Amazon. But since the warehouses are really busy already the local physical presence doesn't help Amazon that much.

This is one possible reason why a local player can hold himself, That and a local UI of course.

One big manufacturer of parcel lockers is polish. So i wonder - how popular is using parcel lockers for e-commerce is in Poland?

Also, using parcel lockers can make a lot of the logistics much easier, and this might explain how allegro.pl could offer a Prime like service.

Personally prefer it over any other method - the most comfortable pickup in a mid-sized city, given somewhat irregular office hours. I've noticed some friends were having serious misgivings about trusting this method of delivery, but having tried it once, loved it. Apparently for 2017 it was apparently 22% of buyers, over 11% in 2015. [1] Worth noting is that the same service provider (Inpost) also handles courier delivery and pickups at gas stations and other such.

As for sellers, surprisingly not every one is providing this option yet.

edit: Notably some models of the parcel lockers welcome users with rather heartfelt messages - and count and show the short time it took to pick up the goods. Those trivial functionalities makes it so much more joyous to use.

[1] http://www.dlahandlu.pl/detal-hurt/wiadomosci/po-firmach-kur... "

So tue, the last mile really sucks with a lot of carriers. Here in Germany DHL used to be the Gold Standard for some time. But with ever increasing volumes it also became a pain, at least for Amazon deliveries. For others they are now offering things like selecting preferred delivery Dates while the package is still in transit.

Lockers are a great solution, the only thing better is having an employer that allows private packages to be shipped there.

I'm still not convinced that the Amazon logistics solution, leaving parcels at the door step of customers regardless, is such a good idea so.

Volvo is rolling out a service where you can get stuff delivered into the trunk of your car.

Tesco offers similar service - shop online, drive up to the mall, get groceries deposited directly to your car's trunk. Haven't tried it yet.

That's not at all similar. What Volvo offer is: regardless of where your car is parked, before the day is over, your postal package can be found in the trunk of your car.

It's almost like magic. :-P

I just read the article about trunk delivery. It blew my mind, I was honestly amazed that this exists. https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/24/17261744/amazon-package-d...

> So i wonder - how popular is using parcel lockers for e-commerce is in Poland?

From my own experience: extremely. It's the default option, everything else is considered only if the parcel doesn't fit the locker.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com