Jokr bets on New York City for ultrafast delivery
New Yorkers who want their online orders filled in 15 minutes or less have a new bike-based option.
Days after bike-based European fast delivery startup Gorillas started U.S. operations in Brooklyn, Jokr, a new 15-minute delivery platform, is launching in select areas of New York City. Founded by a New York-based team of former Walmart, Uber, Delivery Hero, and Softbank executives, Jokr promises to deliver mobile and online orders to its customers within 15 minutes or less via bicycle.
As with competing ultrafast delivery providers such as Gorillas and Gopuff, Jokr relies on a network of strategic micro-fulfillment hubs in and around the cities it operates in. The company fills spontaneous and everyday needs across categories including grocery, personal care, baby, wellness, and household items. The service is free to use, with no minimum order requirements or delivery fees.
Jokr currently offers around 1,500 items, with delivery zones covering most of Manhattan below 35th Street, as well as neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. The company plans to soon expand its U.S. operations to at least five cities including Boston across the Mid-Atlantic, with additional European and South American cities in the coming months.
Driven by hyper-localized and neighborhood-specific data, Jokr’s micro-fulfillment hubs are designed to provide the company flexibility and control of its products. Each hub is refreshed on a daily basis, with constantly changing items that rotate based on sales data as well as consumer demand and availability.
These hubs work as micro-distribution centers for pickers to immediately fulfill and hand off an order to a waiting rider, who then delivers the items to customers in 15 minutes or less. According to the company, its prices are on par with, and frequently cheaper than, grocery and corner stores. In planning to rapidly scale the business across U.S. markets, it aims to work on a hyper-local level by buying from local businesses and hiring delivery riders full-time from the local communities it serves.
“Our mission is simple: Jokr aims to improve the speed of delivery, lower the price and create an outstanding customer experience for anything that can be locally delivered,” said U.S. co-founder Zachary Dennett. “Recognizing consumer demand for fast, consistent delivery of everyday products, Jokr offers a highly curated and data-driven selection of products that is hyper-localized for each and every neighborhood, taking the guesswork out of what product consumers want and need.”