Trellus Co-founders Adam Haber and JR Jensen were recently interviewed on the Voice of Small Business Podcast hosted by Nick Haiduk, co-owner of Haiduks Warehouse. This platform provided a great opportunity for Adam and JR to dive deeper into their business backstory and how Same-Day Delivery by Trellus works.
After the interview, Haiduk tagged dozens of small businesses that might benefit from Same-Day Delivery by Trellus.
“What [Trellus] is doing is creating a really level playing field with the big name retailers. You can offer to your clients or customers same-day delivery on your prorudcts, which is tremendous,” Haiduk explained, encouraging followers to visit the Trellus website to learn more.
Below is an excerpt of the podcast interview, published May 20, 2022, and available on Spotify.
Image credit: Voice of Small Business Podcast
Haiduk: Did I see that [Trellus offers] ‘Same-Day’ delivery’?
Adam Haber, CEO: We’re on-demand same-day delivery. We try and do it as quickly as possible. Most of our deliveries, over 90%, are completed within a couple of hours, but we guarantee same-day. We do it from Mineola to Montauk, even into Queens a little bit — everywhere on Long Island. We can pick up and drop off anything that’s under 50 pounds and under 3-foot square that fits in the car. And we’ve got every kind of retailer you can imagine, from flowers to hardware to printers, to baked goods to toys to clothing. Any small business that wants the ability to compete with the ‘Amazons’ and get their customers happy and get their goods quicker is what the model is.
JR Jensen, CTO: So we launched with same-day, but after working with a lot of the merchants and hearing their pain points, we implemented new features so merchants can schedule deliveries for the next day. So as much as it is for same-day delivery, merchants can take all deliveries from the weekend and schedule for Monday to save time. A lot of what we sell here is saving business owners time. So aside from them not having to do their own deliveries, they’re also able now to group a lot of deliveries together, shipping them all at once the next day.
Adam: To further JR’s point, JR and Justin [D’Ottavio], our lead programmer, were really good about listening to what the customers want. We also are able to do routes and batch up to 49 deliveries at once so we can handle all logistics for a company, especially during the busy holidays when there are hundreds of deliveries. We become their full-time driver. So instead of spending $50,000 a year on salary, car insurance liability, workers comp, they can work with us at a fraction of the cost and get better service. It really works out very well for everybody.
Totally…Amazon seems awesome. But at least the last year or so, you’re expecting next-day delivery, but then I get delayed six days. And I’m like what the [expletive]?
JR: You’re right! We pride ourselves on that. And that’s a huge portion of what [Trellus Co-founder and COO Brian Berkery] and his team does. We have our Driver Network Director Gil [Consuegra] and our Client Success Director Steve [Blau]. …We built out a team to make sure that deliveries aren’t forgotten about and nothing is ‘thrown into the woods’. …We take it very seriously and it’s point-to-point delivery…
…So, do you outsource the deliveries or do you have your personnel that deliver all these services and products?
Adam: We have our own vetted network of drivers. We have over 70 drivers in our network with background checks. They like working for us because we don’t deliver food. We don’t deliver your hot pizza in 10 minutes and we don’t deliver [passengers], and people could do it in between gigs. They could turn our driver app on and off. They could work all day or they can work on the weekends. It’s a great way for them to make a side hustle.
And the drivers prefer working for us because they get treated better. We give them 80% of the delivery fee without taking out any credit card processing fees, where everybody else gives them 70%. JR, Brian, and I wanted to build a best-in-class business where people took pride in where they worked, where we treated our employees with kindness, where there was no corporate b.s., and everybody felt like their voice was heard. We are trying to build something that’s extraordinary from the ground up. And so far so good! It’s super exciting, and it’s working.
Originally when I saw your business I thought maybe it was just [serving] one part of Long Island. I was like, that’s just crazy to do the whole Island. Then I started seeing Selmer’s Pet Land and Jungle Bob’s. They’re two of my favorites!
Adam: You need crickets? We’ll get you some crickets!
The Goliath worms! Such a good price! But let me ask: If I really want something from a small business, do I just go to that company directly and say I want delivery, and the small business reaches out to you? Or do I go on your website to see what businesses you have and then go to you to order?
Adam: Right now, what we have set up is a directory where you go on directly to our website [Marketplace], and we have 250 merchant partners… The business can take the order over the phone, and Trellus is integrated with Shopify or WooCommerce at checkout. It’s up to [the business] how they handle the transaction. The business then purchases a shipping label from us, kind of like UPS. They can charge it and eat the cost or they can just pass the cost along [to the customer]. So right now the transaction is between the consumer and the business.
What JR is working on feverishly with our tech team is building a very similar system to what you see on Amazon or other e-commerce sites where you’ll type in what you want. We’re going to pull the inventory straight from Jungle Bob’s website or straight from the chocolate shop, straight from the bakery, straight from the hardware store. You’ll be able to buy the items directly, and we will then take care of the checkout. And the transaction will be with us and we’ll handle delivery, but 100% of the proceeds will still go to the business partner. We pride ourselves in not taking a percentage of the sale like Uber Eats and DoorDash. Our model is much, much different.
Thank you to Nick Haiduk for providing this great platform to share our story! Listen to the Voice of Small Business podcast and the episode featuring Trellus on Spotify.
