Motorcycle courier start-up riding high on demand for faster delivery

Transweb Delivery Services staff revving to go. At right is the firm’s founder Leah Kuria. PHOTOS | COURTESY 

By KIHU IRIMU

In Summary

• Transweb Delivery Services Limited has its motorbikes crisscrossing Nairobi, Thika, Athi River, Kitengela, Kitisuru, Kiambu and Limuru delivering over 1,500 packages a week.
• Some of the parcels that Transweb delivers include bulk mail, shopping, invoices, gift flowers, letters, invitation cards, cheques, medication, food, court summons and laboratory samples.

The parcel delivery business in Kenya has over the years undergone great changes, with public service vehicle (PSV) companies dethroning the Postal Corporation of Kenya from the helm.

Leah Kuria-Maina, who is in her late 30s, has in the past seven years inflicted more damage to the State firm through her business, which uses about 35 motorcyles to deliver parcels in and around Nairobi.

Transweb Delivery Services Limited, a company she started in 2005, has its motorbikes crisscrossing Nairobi, Thika, Athi River, Kitengela, Kitisuru, Kiambu and Limuru delivering over 1,500 packages a week.

The motorcycles return a profit of Sh500,000 every month, after expense deductions of approximately Sh750,000.

“Parcels are sensitive and the customer’s primary interest is safety, confidentiality and timeliness,” Mrs Kuria told Enterprise during an interview at her offices in Parkside Suite, Parklands.

Some of the parcels that Transweb delivers include bulk mail, shopping, invoices, gift flowers, letters, invitation cards, cheques, medication, food, court summons and laboratory samples.

Mrs Kuria, a mother of three, left St Mary School Narok in 1998 and enrolled at the Universal College (situated along Nairobi’s Moi Avenue) for a course in travel operations.

She landed several jobs including at SGS Kenya – a vehicle inspection company – and later as a human resource administrator at Carjill Services Limited, a coffee warehousing firm based in Mombasa.

Her job at the warehousing firm helped her pick up skills in the delivery business and saw her begin toying with the idea of starting her own firm.

But she did not have the capital to actualise her idea so she continued seeking employment, surviving on short-term contracts with various companies, including the Kenya Institute of Management.

In 2008, after her latest short-term contract job ended, she decided to try her hand at entrepreneurship. Mrs Kuria, who was at the time based in Thika, started delivering small parcels in person between her hometown and Nairobi through public transport.

“I was the messenger, cleaner and managing director of the company. I used to spend several hours in matatus every week delivering packages between the two towns,” she said.

“Some customers kept coming back and I got encouraged and sub-let an office along Tubman Road in Nairobi. The room cost Sh1,500 a month and it was just enough to accommodate one chair and table.”She wrote hundreds of introductory letters to various random companies which, like her parcels, she delivered personally and made follow-up calls to check if they bought her idea.

After three months of walking up and down Nairobi with no noteworthy client, one firm called back and invited her to sign a deal worth Sh12,000 per month.

Tragedy struck in 2010 when her office was auctioned off over rent arrears owed by the person she had sub-leased it from. Mrs Kuria lost all her records, including the contacts of the 900 firms she had contacted to canvass for contracts.

 She rented another office near Jevanjee Gardens for Sh5,000 per month and went on to laboriously inform her clients that she was still in business at a new location

“My clientele slowly expanded to include institutions, firms and individuals. In five years of business, I had eight motorbikes and 15 employees,” Mrs Kuria said.

In 2013, she moved to a bigger office in the heart of the CBD on Koinange Street for which she was paying Sh15,000 per month. She also bought her first pick-up truck to handle bulky packages that cannot be ferried safely using motorbikes.
Early this year, she relocated to Parklands.

Transweb’s has divided its area of operation into three zones.

Zone A consists of Nairobi’s central business district while Zone B is made up of satellite centres like Upper Hill, Westlands and Industrial Area. The last zone includes Ruaraka, Karen, Thika and Athi River, among other places which are far from town.

These regions attract different charges depending on the distance travelled, the type and weight of the package and the urgency with which it should be delivered. “A regular letter being delivered within the CBD attracts a charge of Sh300.

However, if you want it delivered within an hour, you could be asked to add as much as Sh500 to fast-track the process,” said Mrs Kuria.

Transweb’s bikers pick up packages at the main office or a specific pick-up location in the different zones and deliver them to foot couriers who hand-deliver them to clients.

The firm also has some employees permanently stationed within some firms who collect packages within a business and then deliver them to the bikers or in person. Transweb has 48 employees.

Mrs Kuria says she plans to set up branches in more counties starting with those adjacent to Nairobi and then expand her business to Kisumu and Mombasa where she plans on operating through outsourcing.

She is also hunting for an international firm for partnership targeting the regional markets.

While the volume of letters delivered through the traditional post offices remains sluggish, private firms like Transweb are seemingly doing well at the expense of Posta. Data from the Communications Authority of Kenya shows that the total number of letters sent in the year ended June increased 0.6 per cent to 59.4 million.

The volume of letters received from other countries during the period decreased by 1.6 per cent to 9.5 million, while the number of letters sent abroad rose 40.4 per cent to 5.2 million.