Kozmo: Ice cream, food, videos (even pr0n!) to your door in <30m

Hunter

Great service... all they needed was an order minimum and some restriction on local delivery distance and it might have survived. plus, they had super-kool scooters :)

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12yr ago

Kozmo was a delivery service that allowed urban customers to order a wide array of products, including movies, books, video games and even food. Deliverymen would then come and deliver the order to customers' doors for free within one hour by bicycle,car, truck or public transportation. Kozmo had operations in 11 major cities and was once seen as a new method of delivery for online purchases that would eventually challenge UPS and FedEx. However the company was only profitable in four of those cities, partly due to the flawed business model The model was criticized by some business analysts, who pointed out that one-hour point-to-point delivery of small objects is extremely expensive and were skeptical that Kozmo could make a profit as long as it refused to charge delivery fees.The company countered in part that, in their target markets, savings due to not needing to rent space for retail stores would exceed the costs of delivery. Kozmo secured about $280 million from investors. Kozmo had to withdraw plans for an initial public offering in the summer of 2000, citing unfavorable market conditions and losses of $26 million in 1999.The company laid off 900 of its 2,000-person workforce and instituted a $10 minimum charge in the first quarter of 2001, but it was forced to shut down its service in April 2001. This was probably one of the earliest companies that offered on-demand services now popularized by uber, postmates etc..

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12yr ago

Go Fractional

Profitably in NYC if I remember correctly - I still have some Kozmo gear and used it a ton

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12yr ago