French app recruits ordinary people to do deliveries near their homes

An app allowing online shoppers to call on volunteer delivery people in their local community - for a small ‘tip fee’ - is expanding after the pandemic boosted interest in the service.

Take up of the service provided by the Shopopop app increased dramatically during the pandemic, when deliveries via the scheme jumped 400% in 2020.

The ‘crowdshipping’ app was created in 2016 by business partners Antoine Cheul and Johan Ricaut to facilitate contact between retailers, volunteer delivery people and end customers.

Côte-d’Or expansion

Dijon has been making use of Shopopop since October 2018 and now has 500 volunteer deliverers and seven local supermarket partnerships.

Back in March, Shopopop was expanded to cover Quetigny (Côte-d’Or), where 50 volunteers have so far helped make 500 deliveries involving Leclerc.

The company is now hoping to develop partnerships with other local businesses as well, including small shops that suffered during the pandemic because they could not offer delivery.

Not meant to be a job

While any adult can become a volunteer delivery person, they are subject to a charter of good conduct and a rating system.

"We make sure that the shopper has been respectful, that there have been no damaged products", communications manager for Shopopop, Delphine de la Gournerie, told France 3.

For each delivery, the delivery person can expect to receive at least €5 in tips, or more depending on the amount of shopping and the distance covered.

However “It's not meant to be a job”, added Ms de la Gournerie. In fact, the platform limits a delivery person to making 8 to 10 deliveries per month to ensure that cannot happen.

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