A revolution in delivery service. CUSTO launches a smart delivery box that acts as your personal assistant, handling everything that comes through your front door.
Custo
The client
The brick-and-mortar shops are disappearing, and online shops are exploding. Delivery services have a hard time handling the flood of packages. Parcels are arriving late, at neighbors’ houses, or not at all. Meanwhile, the value of the goods inside them is going up. Francis Delplanque and Kevin Alderweireldt wanted to tackle these problems with Custo which is so much more than a smart delivery box.
Francis and Kevin landed on our doorstep looking for a technical partner with expertise in both software and connected objects to manage the whole project. An IoT project however encompasses so much more than just the technical aspect. We showed them the actual complexity of an IoT project, broke it down into little steps, fine-tuned the concept and rebuilt the product into an even more promising concept. At the same time, we managed expectations about the smart delivery box in terms of feasibility and privacy issues.
“The cooperation with Verhaert Digital went perfect from the beginning. It’s a team of highly talented professionals who go much further than just delivering a project. The guidance they provide and the expertise they share was present throughout the entire process. Thank you!”
Francis Delplanque, co-founder Custo
The challenge
Custo came to us to solve the two main issues delivery services and web shops are struggling with; reduce the number of failed deliveries for postal services and provide an automated proof of delivery mechanism for the web shops that send the parcels. We expanded the initial idea of a smart delivery box to a platform of services. After all, why not use the delivery box to return packages, pass on your car key to your neighbor, manage the warranties on every gadget you order, send your laundry to the ironing service, or get your food delivered? The possibilities are endless. Anything that passes through your front door could be managed by Custo, your personal custodian. This smart delivery box makes users’ lives so much more convenient.
Easier said than done of course but nothing our enthusiastic team can’t handle.
The challenges we faced:
- UI/UX: End users and delivery services immediately have to understand how the smart delivery box works. Delivery services are racing against the clock so intuitive design is key.
- Durability: building a product that is typically used for decades brings in responsibilities in terms of sustainability, picking the right materials, ease of repairing or changing, upgradability of the electronics and firmware, …
- Secure: The smart delivery box should only open at the right time. Not only the hardware but also the software needs to be rock solid.
- Connected and interactive: The user needs to know the exact status of his/her smart delivery box at all times and the contents inside. With numerous parties passing by and dropping or picking up goods it is a challenge to continuously pass on this information correctly to the user.
- Modular and scalable design for both delivery box and infrastructure
The solution
We guided our client from idea to product. Much more than a technical partner, we were an advisor. From business strategy and project management controlling budget and timings to solving all the hardware challenges on the way (there were quite a few). The result is a modular and scalable model ready to conquer the market.
