We thank Polihub, the incubator of the Milan Polytechnic, for believing in GEL Proximity. Also thanks to them many other Logistics professionals, companies and managers have grasped the innovative value of the first Platform entirely dedicated to proximity. We reproduce the full article published by Polihub.it
GEL Proximity: the last mile becomes sustainable
A marketplace that has seen its numbers quadruple in less than three years and a startup that promises to enable consumers to personally govern their own logistics process following an online purchase. It is GEL Proximity, the first platform dedicated to proximity logistics and key last mile services offered in Italy. We talked about it with Lorenzo Maggioni, CEO and founder of the startup, who told us how the idea was born and how 2021 will be the breakthrough year.
We meet Lorenzo (Ed. Maggioni, CEO of GEL Proximity) during the October Update, the first in-person after months of lockdowns and digital events. A team that has just joined PoliHub, with the enthusiasm of those who have in front of them new tools and new possibilities to work and grow their project. After a few weeks, we decide to get in touch to learn more about the new entry and tell the community about it. “GEL Proximity is a technological connector that facilitates relationships and information exchange between tens of thousands of lockers, pickup points, physical or automated belonging to 18 Italian last-mile networks, and the world of online sales,” Lorenzo tells us. “We are the first platform dedicated to proximity logistics and the main last mile services offered in Italy.”
New logistics for more sustainable online sales
Tell us in more detail what GEL Proximity is all about, we ask Lorenzo. “The platform was created to support online sales in a sustainable way, through a new concept of omnichannel and client-centric Logistics. It is precisely the online consumer who, thanks to GEL Proximity, can choose the preferred pickup point within his daily proximity, thus designing a new check out experience. This approach clearly impacts sales (fewer drops to the cart), end-user UX, logistics costs, and the environment. And while in the B2C scenario, pickup points become places where consumers go to pick up or return packages, in the B2B world pickup points become real pickup or decoupling points for business logistics. There are many evolutions and development potentials, and the common desire is to improve current operations by supporting the logic of parcel collecting, with the concrete goal of redesigning city flows for a new smart mobility.”
E-commerce, a market in constant growth
A market, that of online product purchases, which in 2020 is estimated to reach 23.4 billion euros, up +31 percent compared to 2018 and equal to 8 percent of the entire retail market, and which needs to be adequately supported by an efficient logistics system. The idea, however, has its roots in pre-Covid times and stems from the founders’ experience in logistics, e-commerce and technology, who identified a clear need also thanks to their strong relationships with logistics operators and the e-commerce market. Lorenzo Maggioni, who has important experiences in international contexts and in the field of Locker, and Damiano Frosi, Director of the Contract Logistics Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, take their first steps together in 2019 by studying the main reasons for abandoning online shopping carts. Also thanks to the contribution of Valerio Bevilacqua, an expert in digital growing, the analysis turns into a project and takes its first steps. Logistics operators, last-mile networks, institutions, Marketplaces, and major online stores immediately show special attention to GEL Proximity, which is shaped by the demands expressed by the market itself.
GEL Proximity joins PoliHub in December 2019 thanks to the Switch2Product win: “the subsequent acceleration path was instrumental in becoming aware of the potential of the business idea,” Lorenzo says. In July 2020, he obtained spin-off status from the Milan Polytechnic. “PoliHub is a home for us,” Frosi and Maggioni comment, “where we still choose to stay because we strongly believe in the potential and tools that the Incubator can make available to us. This gives us the opportunity to work side by side with researchers at the Politecnico di Milano and in particular with the Digital Innovation Observatories. The synergies and the network are for us the elements of great value that are allowing GEL Proximity to become the first technological reference point for Proximity Logistics in Italy.”
“In the course of developing the business idea, we formed the Advisory Board of GEL Proximity. Alessandro Perego (Professor of Logistics Management, Director of the Department of Eng. Management and Head of the Digital Innovation Observatories), to Riccardo Mangiaracina (Scientific Director of the B2c, B2b, Export Observatories and Professor of Logistics Management), to Valentina Pontiggia (Director of the B2c and Retail Observatories), to Antonio Ghezzi (Director of the High-Tech & Startup Observatory and Professor of Strategy) and to Edoardo Ancora (Corporate Finance Partner in BDO Luxembourg) have provided valuable input that allowed the Management to define the strategy and make important choices.”
From the pandemic a new scenario
What about the pandemic? At a time of great difficulty for the whole world, is it representing an obstacle or an opportunity? “In this very emergency situation we are still in, we are seeing a major expansion of the eCommerce market. In 2020, an estimated 448 million parcels (+33% compared to 2019) are estimated to come from B2C purchases, but the current logistics capacity is not enough to provide real answers to this large volume growth. Here then is increasing talk about automated solutions, cities changing their faces by writing new delivery policies, and the last mile.
Sustainability will therefore come through improved logistics proposals and their technological accessibility
In this scenario, the role of omnichannel platforms such as GEL Proximity is therefore crucial to enable consumers to be able to access multiple services simultaneously and finalize an online purchase by governing the entire process themselves.”
Let’s close with a look at the future, how do you envision that of GEL Proximity?
“2021 will be the year of market launch and consecration for GEL Proximity, which will allow the platform to be used by major online stores and operators who are investing in proximity logistics. It is just the first step in putting the customer – who is today profoundly changing their shopping habits – back at the center and growing last-mile logistics in a sustainable way.”
