A tip to save money: what if you optimized the price of your train journeys… by delivering parcels

Il est proposé aux voyageurs d'optimiser leurs trajets en livrant des colis. DR

WePost, une start-up déploie un nouveau service pour les voyageurs, à Sète et Montpellier.

You are looking for a way to save on the price of your everyday train tickets ? Wepost may have the solution to help you. The company founded in 2021 in Marseille therefore offers travelers the opportunity to use their journeys to deliver small packages, in exchange for a fee that can range from 8 to 20 euros; depending on the number of packages. "Leader in co-transportation by train in France", the collaborative delivery platform will be deployed in 2024 in Lille but also in Montpellier and Sète. Cities “where we have eco-responsible partners who seek to decarbonize their transport and whom we can help,” says Sophie Brette, co-founder of the start-up. Companies like the logistician Boost based in Sète (in a vast 10,000 m2 warehouse, in the former fruit terminal of the Port Sud de France).

"Decarbonize" express deliveries

The founders of WePost hope to impose in cities with a large active or student population, an economically efficient solution (in five hours for Paris-Marseille) to "decarbonize"  the express delivery of small items to intended for individuals. Between the capital and the regions. All this, by adding its stone to the building, with a view to achieving the objective set by the “European Green Deal”, namely 30% of the share of&nbsp ;railway in transport, by 2030. The project is supported by French Tech and BPI France in particular.

Fixed or nomadic relay points

WePost currently boasts a community of 25,000 individual users-travelers-deliverers in France and intends to develop it thanks to an identified potential of "100 billion passengers/km transported by rail, counted in 2022" . To be one of these virtuous users, all you have to do is share your journeys (rather TGV for the moment) on the application, based on the Blablacar model, collect the package(s), at a relay point ( the list will soon be put online on the company's website for Sète and Montpellier, read below) "2 or 3 minutes from the station", assures Sophie Brette. Then on your arrival, drop off the shipment at another relay point, fixed or nomadic. Delivery is secure via a QR code, presentation of an identity document and a unique confidential code. The goods delivered are insured up to 150€.
"The service offers a global solution from collection to home delivery to ship parcels for individuals, merchants and professionals,” indicates the founders of the service. Thus, these are partners in cargo two-wheelers, who provide the first and last kilometers for the collection of packages from professionals (between logistics companies like Boost and relay points, or between relay points and the homes of individuals ).

Service seven days a week

Thirty partners (e-retailers, eco-responsible logisticians and second-hand platforms) and around twenty relay points are already convinced by the experience. In Sète, a scooter store will act as a relay point.
The WePost service will have the advantage of operating seven days a week, weekends and public holidays. We will still have to wait a few weeks before it is fully operational. The start-up intends to continue its expansion, particularly towards Bordeaux.

I subscribe to read more