All the interviews, articles and blogs to do with last mile specialist Fastdrop on the eCabs website will fall under this tag.

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eCabs extends partnership with L-Istrina

eCabs extends partnership with L-Istrina

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eCabs and its sister company Fastdrop announced a logistical partnership with L-Istrina, the annual 12-hour telethon dedicated to raising vital funds for the Malta Community Chest Fund Foundation.

Building on a longstanding commitment to the charitable cause, eCabs said it will this year provide 20 vehicles and 20 professional chauffeurs from noon until the annual telethon closes at midnight.

These vehicles will carry L-Istrina personnel tasked with collecting pledges of financial donations from businesses and individuals all across the island.

Several of the vehicles being used form part of the Fastdrop fleet – eCabs’ sister company specialised in delivery.

Meanwhile, a dedicated team of eCabs logistics experts will also embed with the state IT agency MITA to coordinate routes.

eCabs Malta Chief Executive Officer Andrew Bezzina said that while eCabs has been a long standing supporter of L-Istrina, the company now considers itself an active partner in the event.

“eCabs is a Maltese company, set up to serve the Maltese community. That is why we are thrilled to support L-Istrina every year – a national effort which touches the lives of so many,” Bezzina said.

Fastdrop Chief Executive Officer Greta Borg said the company was pleased to be supporting L-Istrina, as well as providing pro bono logistical support for several other charitable initiatives, including migrant respite organisation MOAS, and Fondazzjoni Sebħ which works with women survivors of violence.

Fastdrop is a last-mile parcel delivery service and forms part of the eCabs group of companies.

Beyond the 12-hour telethon on Boxing Day, eCabs and Fastdrop will also be extending their support for L-Istrina throughout the week, providing crucial logistical assistance in the collection of funds pledged during and after the event.

John Huber, Chairman of the Administrative Board of The Malta Community Chest Fund which organises L-Istrina thanked eCabs and Fastdrop for their commitment.

“It is thanks to the collective efforts of companies like eCabs and FastDrop that we hope to make this year’s edition of L-Istrina another success and I encourage everyone to contribute whatever they can to this initiative,” he said.

L-Istrina, an annual tradition since 1995, serves as a beacon of hope for individuals requiring rare or expensive medical treatment or care.

The funds raised through this telethon empower the Malta Community Chest Fund Foundation to make a positive difference in the lives of countless people in the community.

In the press:

The Times of Malta | Lovin Malta

eCabs Fastdrop Shopify

Shopify plug-in introduced to eCabs’ FastDrop platform

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As Shopify continues to establish itself as one of the most used e-commerce platforms in Malta by high-volume merchants, eCabs’ FastDrop has plugged the platform into its FastDrop app to make its merchant customers’ last mile deliveries even faster.

“Automation is crucial for merchants who want to save time and cost on administration of deliveries. With this new plug-in, we offer a simple way for local Shopify-enabled e-commerce platforms to deliver their orders where all they need to do is prepare the order for us to collect,” Ruslan Golomovzy, FastDrop’s business manager, explains.

FastDrop, which evolved from the eCabs Delivers service, was launched just before last summer and the response has been very strong among e-retailers who saw the opportunity of growing their business by not having to handle the delivery aspect of their business, while retaining healthy margins.

“The lengthy process of inputting bookings is a bottleneck for retailers, so our Shopify plugin automates and simplifies this process, unburdening the merchant from having to capture that information, as it pushes directly to the FastDrop platform.”

“Merchants saw the convenience of all this and since we launched FastDrop, we have been doubling the number of merchants on the platform every month, attracting many e-retailers, from small local businesses to international groups operating in Malta and delivering anything from clothing to electronics, to meal plans as well as servicing offices looking for courier deliveries,” Golomovzy adds.

True next-day delivery service

The most attractive aspect of FastDrop is that it is a true next-day delivery service operating 24/7 365 days a year that offers both a ‘deliver now’ and a ‘deliver tomorrow’ option. While ‘deliver now’ delivers in 60 minutes or less from pick-up of the package, ‘deliver tomorrow’ guarantees delivery in 24 hours. This saves merchants time through automation, allowing them to grow their operation with less cost on processing of deliveries.

eCabs is now revamping FastDrop’s core mechanism to optimise deliveries, introducing a labelling and scanning solution that will involve QR codes for better tracking of package status and automating rescheduling of deliveries and is planning to develop and deploy a similar plug-in for other platforms.

In the press

Times of Malta

ECabs Reinventing The Last Mile Delivery Industry Through Fastdrop

eCabs reinventing the last mile delivery industry through Fastdrop

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New 24/7 last mile platform set to permanently change delivery services in Malta.

Local mobility tech industry leaders eCabs have stepped up investment in their last mile platform Fastdrop to bring to the market exceptional service, a new paradigm in last mile delivery and affordable rates, new and improved services that enable even the smallest of stores to be part of the e-commerce market. eCabs is now aiming to become the leading last mile player in the industry, leveraging its unique technology platform with the Maltese market serving as a global showcase for the platform.

Having announced their global strategic partnership with German tech company M-Tribes in August, Fastdrop General Manager Greta Borg explains, “strategically, we are tackling in the same way we revolutionised the cab market in Malta: invest in technology, team up with the best minds in the segment, build a platform on our own intellectual property, take it to the Maltese market and then expand globally.” Greta added that “what has resulted today is an incredible demand for our services. This was translated into the daily delivery of thousands of packages of all sizes and nature. All this in a matter of weeks.”

The accelerated growth of Fastdrop is due to a constantly increasing long list of satisfied B2B clients who are experiencing a process driven platform which is easy to use, empowers the business with data and live tracking, provides the fastest and most cost-effective delivery times on the market with live proof of delivery and offers an unmatched 24/7 service including live support even on public holidays.

An effective, efficient and inexpensive last mile capability

Being tech first, the sky is the limit on where Fastdrop has set its sights. The product development roadmap is packed solid with features. These include eCommerce plug-ins for quick deployment of an eCommerce last mile offering, as well as labelling and scanning with the innovative and brand friendly use of QR codes, unique in this type of deployment. Other features will include end customer tracking through mobile application, empowering customers to also affect delivery date and time changes quickly and easily.

Greta Borg underlined the eCabs philosophy in deploying Fastdrop in Malta emphasising that “from day one, our aim has been to empower local businesses with an effective, efficient and inexpensive last mile capability which can offer value through a round-the-clock service in Malta and Gozo. Fastdrop is also enabling its clients to make use of the unique 24/7 capability. Whilst most businesses are closed on Sunday, today’s consumer expectations means that customers are open to delivery of packages any time, any day.  “Some business clients have started taking advantage of this operational strength and the numbers in this area are growing. We have found ways with some to enable stock collection in the early hours of the morning when the same business is closed at no extra cost to the business and the customer”.

As the business grows day-on-day, the Company is shaping new products largely in the middle mile segment through which Fastdrop would be enabling the business to outsource its internal logistics including warehouse to store, and store to store stock movements. This will eliminate internal inefficiencies and mitigate costly inventory stock piling and other operating expenditure such as the cost of maintaining vehicles and delivery personnel.

In the press:

The Times of Malta

eCabs M-TRIBES

eCabs sign agreement with Germany-based tech company M-TRIBES

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The partnership with M-TRIBES is a first step towards the internationalisation of eCabs’ technology.

The founders of eCabs and M-TRIBES, a Germany-based software provider for mobility and logistics businesses recently announced to extend their technology partnership and offer a unique bundle of ride-hailing and delivery software and services in Europe and Northern Africa.

Following their collaboration on creating FastDrop, eCabs’ last-mile delivery-as-a-service platform, the two companies will optimise the utilisation of their workforce and assets to market eCabs’ fully IP-owned ride-hailing platform, as well as the joint FastDrop delivery technology.

Whereas M‑TRIBES is planning to refocus its ambitions in the ride-hailing segment to resell the eCabs technology, FastDrop by eCabs becomes M‑TRIBES principal business partner for product and business development in the Last and Middle Mile Delivery category.

“The last mile segment has long been in our sights. Back in 2019, we tested the market and quickly validated our hypothesis on the opportunities that existed. Our partnership with M-TRIBES enabled us to fast track the deployment of FastDrop. Now this relationship has grown to combine our joint expertise in transport software and operations to power independent operators in both spaces of ride hailing and last mile within the EMEA region, and help to expand their business,” explained eCabs CEO Matthew Bezzina.

A fruitful business relationship with M-TRIBES

For eCabs the extended partnership marks an important step forward on its journey defined by the experience of providing ride-hailing operations for more than 11 years, as well as intelligent investments that have enabled the Malta-based operator to defend the market-leader position in the highly competitive ride-hailing space within the region. After building a powerful technology setup that it tested in the road dense local market, eCabs is now taking a bold step on the path of going international, with an integrated mobility solution.

eCabs has been working since 2020 with M-TRIBES as part of its long-term vision to move into third party logistics, with the launch of FastDrop to specifically service the last mile and middle mile segment in Malta. FastDrop is poised to overhaul the local last mile market through B2B partnerships, with the aim of bridging the gap and improving last mile services and consumer communications, with timely and well communicated delivery in the local and foreign eCommerce space.

A fruitful business relationship quickly emerged after the companies started collaborating at the height of the pandemic. To develop the FastDrop platform, like-minded professionals from both companies in the field of product development and technology worked on the existing and powerful M-Tribes platform M-TOOLS, enhancing it through the added operational expertise that eCabs boasts.

M‑TRIBES founding partners Patrick Arle and Marian-Maximilian Martens recently met with eCabs founding partners Matthew Bezzina and Dr Andrew Bezzina in Malta, to discuss details of the MOU.

A technology-first culture

Matthew Bezzina, eCabs CEO concludes, “The synergies between M‑TRIBES and eCabs are strongly rooted in a great personal understanding as well as a technology-first culture. This is an important step for us in that we can look at accelerating our international aspirations to see our ride hailing technology landing in other large and respectable European markets, whilst we keep on investing in the FastDrop product to build it into an unrivalled brand. The more we look overseas, the more we see exciting opportunities that are there for the taking. We are very excited by the prospects that this great understanding with Patrick, Marian and the M‑TRIBES team brings with it”.

In order to exploit the full potential of their partnership an understanding between the two organizations has grown such that eCabs and M‑TRIBES are investing on two new areas of their collaboration. Whereas M‑TRIBES is planning to refocus its ambitions in the ride-hailing segment to resell the eCabs technology, FastDrop by eCabs becomes M‑TRIBES principal business partner for product and business development in the Last and Middle Mile Delivery category.

M-TRIBES CEO, Patrick Arle highlights the like mindedness in both aspirations and work ethic the companies share. “We are very excited to be expanding our partnership with eCabs. Our companies have developed a mutual understanding on many levels and we both share the belief that the combination of our offering fits like a glove to the needs of independent operators.”

“Together with eCabs we now look forward to build bigger international opportunities quicker than we both could have before. Wrapping up our offering of ride-hailing and delivery technology will enable local and independent operators to thrive in times of massive change in the transportation industry.”

In the press:

Times of Malta | Who’s Who | Mediterranean Observer | Gadgets Malta | Mediterranean Observer