Tell us a few words about the founders and how the idea came to them

To continue his post-baccalaureate studies, Aliou NIANG, founder of Colis GP, moved to France after obtaining his baccalaureate.
Like most foreigners living in France, regardless of the time we spend there, there are always certain habits of our country of origin (gastronomy, fashion, etc.) that we cannot get over. release. Aliou was no exception and during all his studies repeatedly expressed the need to be able to receive goods from his country or to send it. These goods could be either local foodstuffs, clothes, medicines, cell phones or documents, etc.

Shipments to Africa via post are not very successful and those via DHL are excessively expensive. Aliou often had recourse to acquaintances or relatives who went temporarily to the country to ensure his shipments. Except that these occasions are infrequent and have a lot of other demands. The demand was far greater than the supply.

Superior, to the point where, the “GPs”, term born within the Senegalese community to designate the furtive mail carriers located in red castles (Paris), transporting small parcels invoiced by the kilogram, make it their business.

Having experimented several times with this service, which costs 30 times less (191 € vs 6 € for a 1Kg parcel) than DHL and with a similar or even better delivery time, Aliou has identified several problems, namely:

  • Non-existence on the internet: activity only works by word of mouth.
  • Limitation of destinations: the routes offered are only stopped between Paris and Dakar.
  • Lack of formality: No contract or proof exists to legitimize the delivery.

The search for solutions to these aforementioned issues justifies the birth of the Colis GP platform, which is revolutionizing parcel transport:

  • By globalizing the activity of GPs throughout the African diaspora.
  • By opening the service to anyone on the move and wishing to amortize their trip.
  • By offering more formalism and reliability through a rating system and carrier reviews.
  • And by contracting the routing;

Your products and services:

The Colis GP platform, through its website www.colis-gp.com, is a collaborative platform that is part of the dynamics of the sharing economy such as Blablacar, AirBnB, etc.

Sensitive to the various difficulties faced by the African community in the diaspora to send or receive parcels, luggage, or documents to or from Africa, Colis GP offers a connecting service between travelers and shippers for the transport of goods.

Your success factors:

Colis GP responds to a need that has long been a real problem for us Africans in the diaspora. Sending packages to Africa with a reasonable price and delivery time has always been next to impossible.

Due to our informal addressing system and our rampant urbanization, companies specializing in sending parcels like the post office cannot get parcels to Africa on time, most parcels get lost, or have an inordinate delay before arriving at destinations. Only companies like DHL succeed because they work by relay point, but the prices offered are exorbitant and are beyond the purchasing power of most Africans (191 € for a 1Kg package for an express shipment to Senegal for example).

Parcels GP through its platform, not only helps the traveler who offers the service to amortize the costs of his trip (plane ticket, etc.), but also allows shippers to send an express shipment (less than 24 hours) 30 times cheaper than what the market offers.

Your differentiating and disruptive factors compared to the existing:

What makes the difference and the strength of Colis GP is above all the aspect:

  • their suitcase and thus amortize their travel costs; and shippers to benefit from Low Cost express shipping.
  • Ecological: it makes a lasting contribution to the preservation of the environment, because travelers make their trip anyway, but benefit from as many parcels as possible to be transported. In the long term, this would reduce the rate of use of means of transport exclusively reserved for transporting parcels.
  • Friendly: through a satisfaction survey sent to our users recently, several of them told us about the enriching encounters they had and the relationships they were able to forge and subsequently maintain thanks to the platform.

Your business model:

For the moment, contacting Colis GP is free. This is a choice that we have adopted to give ourselves time to better develop our services so that they best meet the expectations of our users.

However, the business model we have in view is the commission on transactions which, later, will be fully managed on the platform. The advantage of this business model is that users only pay when they use the service. This will generate income according to the growth of the activity.

Your competitors:

Our main competitors are organizations specializing in sending parcels internationally, namely: Post, DHL, UPS, Fedex, etc.

To find out more about you:

Website: www.colis-gp.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ColisGP

Twitter: www.twitter.com/ColisGP

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/colis-gp

https://startup.info/en/colisgp/

About The Author

CEO AfrikaTech

Comme beaucoup de personnes j’ai connu l’Afrique à travers des stéréotypes : l’Afrique est pauvre, il y a la guerre, famine… Je suis devenu entrepreneur pour briser ces clichés et participer à la construction du continent. J’ai lancé plusieurs entreprises dont Kareea (Formation et développement web), Tutorys (Plate-forme de e-learning), AfrikanFunding (Plate-forme de crowdfunding). Après un échec sur ma startup Tutorys, à cause d’une mauvaise exécution Business, un manque de réseau, pas de mentor, je suis parti 6 mois en immersion dans l’écosystème Tech au Sénégal. J’ai rencontré de nombreux entrepreneurs passionnés, talentueux et déterminés. A mon retour sur Paris je décide de raconter leur histoire en créant le média AfrikaTech. L'objectif est de soutenir les entrepreneurs qui se battent quotidiennement en Afrique en leur offrant la visibilité, les connaissances, le réseautage et les capitaux nécessaires pour réussir. L'Afrique de demain se construit aujourd'hui ensemble. Rejoignez-nous ! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boubacardiallo

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