Trunkrs

Finding a ‘sustainable’ USP

The Challenge

Trunkrs provides medium-sized e-commerce companies with consumer-centric, fast, flexible, friendly, and sustainable delivery services.

The company is asset-light and focuses on developing tech and managing the supply chain efficiently. Trunkrs offers an unprecedented 99% on-time service, and based on their Trustpilot rating of 4.8 / 5, it’s clear they are loved by consumers.

The Trunkrs proposition suits many medium-sized companies in the Dutch market who want a personalised sustainable delivery service that is consumer-centric, fast, flexible and friendly.

The company has become a reference brand in its vertical, achieving ARR exceeding €5million and expecting to grow 100% in 2021, so international expansion is an exciting growth prospect. Building on their success in The Netherlands, they are now preparing to launch in Belgium.

Trunkrs has learnt how to flex its business in line with demand. They have a C-suite of experienced leaders supporting the CEO through rapid growth. However, they are operating in a congested marketplace and need to ensure the brand develops it’s unique positioning, while looking for additional high-growth markets, partly as a defence mechanism against local competition, but also to take advantage of new revenue opportunities.

As they continue to expand, they want to leverage their infrastructure, clients and geographical position to maximum effect while mitigating risks.

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Quick Facts

Founding year: 2015
% women in C-level: 0
Industry: Mobility & Transportation
Total Funding: 5-7.5m EUR
Expansion priorities: -
Offices + HQ: Nieuwegein (HQ), Utrecht

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The Approach

Lessons from Compass

Finding a ‘sustainable’ USP

Trunkrs wanted to understand how best to use its USPs. Same-day delivery is a compelling selling point but work needed to be done to understand which new markets might have the appetite for a faster delivery service that comes with a premium, which verticals lend themselves more naturally to a speed-led proposition and if this type of service will resonate with a mainstream customer audience or a niche subset. Trunkrs is conducting in-depth primary research in each potential target market first, as the cost of setting up operationally and the risk associated with getting it wrong could be high.

Understanding the market

Any business expanding needs to invest in a detailed marketing and sales strategy. In Trunkrs’ space, it is a continual process. The company is tracking all marketing activities and sales performance to understand how to increase efficiency.

Scaling some crossover accounts from The Netherlands to test and validate the proposition thoroughly is a possibility, so that with market fit understood and validated, investment in product and operations can follow.

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MESSAGE TO OTHER SCALEUPS

I would definitely recommend participating in a programme like Compass. We learned a lot and I’m happy I did not just dive into the expansion without having a good look at the organisation first. It was a time well spent for us.

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I just wanted to thank everyone for the work done, the input and the inspiration that you have brought to us as a team, to me, really awesome to be in this project and being able to enjoy all the expertise here.

Jan Wijn

The Results

Before vs after the programme

We entered this programme with the idea that we would go international, to find out which country and just get onto it. However, in the process, we found that there's a lot of work to be done to do it successfully and that's extremely valuable.

Compass underlines the importance of thinking about the horizon, where we are going and whether we are making the right decisions. We have to start with getting the basics right before making the next steps into internationalisation. It’s super inspiring but also a bit frightening.

Next steps

The first step is for us to take the feedback we have received and action it to make sure we get our basics right before making the first move. Secondly, we have just gone live in Belgium and success in this market is our priority. If we then decide to go into other markets, we would look to work with consultants, set up a strategy department and deep dive into which countries are eligible for us. We would send out a launch team into the market to validate their eligibility and then probably raise funds for the expansion.

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Trade & Investment

Let's talk about your next move.

Get in touch at contact@newfound.global or book a call.

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