Dusseldorf The delivery start-up Liefergrün wants to attack established parcel services with a newly formed management. The experienced logistics manager Nils Fischer becomes co-managing director and, as head of the operative business, is to secure the expansion.
Fischer founded the Liefery start-up in 2014. After Liefery was closed by majority owner Hermes in 2021, Fischer worked in an advisory capacity for Liefergrün. He is now taking on operational responsibility and has ambitious plans together with founder Niklas Tauch.
While delivery startups like Gorillas are struggling to get fresh money, Liefergrün’s expansion is funded. Investors have just made another twelve million euros available. This is also due to the fact that Liefergrün has a different approach: the company does not always want to deliver faster, but instead offers completely emission-free delivery.
“Many customers associate buying online with a bad feeling, and we want to change that,” says founder Tauch. Liefergrün should become the sustainable alternative with cargo bikes and electric vans – but not reinvent logistics. “We combine the best of all worlds,” explains new managing director Fischer.
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In order to professionalize the company and beat the established ones, they poached a number of people there. Stephan Böhm, who was previously regional sales manager at Hermes, is in charge of sales at Liefergrün. The latest addition is Dennis Schulz from Amazon Logistics.
“If you want to make something big, you need people with experience and a network,” says Liefergrün boss Tauch. For Nils Fischer, the new job at Liefergrün means a completely different role than before. While he was the visionary founder at Liefery, he now sees himself as the “regulating hand” behind founder Tauch, who continues to be responsible for strategy.
The competition is also expanding sustainable delivery.
(Photo: dpa)
Fischer says: “We need the right operational structure to be able to cope with the rapid growth.” The company has just started in Austria, the first foreign market. The head of the business there, Sascha Sauer, was also previously with Hermes Logistik.
>> Read also: “Life is not a bed of roses” – This is how UPS parcel deliverers experience the switch from trucks to bikes
The next step is to expand the business in Germany to other cities. Among other things, the Ruhr area, the Rhine-Main area and Munich will be added. “We want to cover 30 to 35 percent of consumers with our service in the coming year,” explains new managing director Fischer.
Time is of the essence because the competition is also expanding sustainable delivery. Hermes has announced that it will only deliver fully electric vehicles throughout Hamburg from the end of 2023. And Amazon Logistics wants to introduce the e-delivery vans ordered from the start-up Rivian in Germany this year.
Adidas, Dyson and H&M won as customers
An important factor for the growth is that Liefergrün has relied on cooperation with big brands from the very beginning. The start-up founded two years ago is already working with Adidas and Dyson. H&M is the first major fashion retailer to join.
Liefergrün also works with the Dax group on delivery.
(Photo: imago images/Schöning)
One problem is that the prices for the emission-free delivery of greenery are still up to 20 percent higher than the prices of the established industry giants. This could slow down business in the current difficult economic environment.
This is shown by a current study by the e-commerce consultancy ECC Cologne. 58 percent of the consumers surveyed stated that, given the high level of inflation, it was difficult to reconcile a sustainable lifestyle with a high standard of living. Julia Frings from the ECC warns: “Retailers can no longer avoid actively considering sustainability in their business model – if you don’t stick with it now, you will lose the consumers of the future.”
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Fischer sees this awareness in many of the brands they work with. “Many are willing to talk about prices,” he observes. The companies are still willing to invest money in the sustainability of the delivery.
Liefergrün not only wants to set itself apart from its competitors when it comes to sustainable delivery. With new services, the company wants to become a brand for consumers. For example, in a pilot project, the company is testing the collection of returns directly from the customer – a service that is very important to customers.
Founder Tausch is sure that more and more customers care about who supplies them. “Delivery,” he predicts, “will become the key differentiator in online retail.”
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