Tempered delivery cabinets can be as groundbreaking as the mailbox once was. Imagine all the items you order online landing in the same cabinet, right at your doorstep. From milk to sneakers. No more need to travel back and forth to pick up packages.
A mailbox that is a refrigerator
We asked E-drop’s CEO, Susanne Hjorthagen, to tell us about a four-year journey that focused on developing and launching a product for the future. Here, she explains in detail about E-Drop, a unique solution that may soon be at your doorstep.
How long does it take to develop something completely new from scratch and launch it in the market? How long is a piece of string? The answer is that it always takes more time than one expects, even when one believes they are being thorough and allowing for extra time.
In 2018, we showcased the first prototype of E-drop at a logistics fair. It took four years of testing and development before we were ready for a broader launch last autumn. It was aimed at a target audience we hadn’t even considered when we started.
Susanne Hjorthagen, CEO, E-drop
I landed, somewhat by chance, at Nowaste Logistics in 2018. Johan Kallin talked about his vision for the future, and I was captivated by his passion. About how the journey to the future was built on people thriving and developing. About how leaders needed to understand themselves in order to understand others. That felt right.
E-drop was just an idea sketch when I took over the project. There was a realization: We needed to find smarter and more resource-efficient solutions for the logistics surrounding the increasing online trade of groceries.
That’s how Nowaste envisioned E-Drop. We wanted to develop a completely new type of mailbox, tailored to a digitized society where e-commerce is growing every year. The new mailbox would be a refrigerator that could receive both packages and refrigerated or frozen food. Everything you purchase online will be there, waiting for you when you come home.
That’s how Nowaste envisioned E-Drop. We wanted to develop a completely new type of mailbox, tailored to a digitized society where e-commerce is growing every year. The new mailbox would be a refrigerator that could receive both packages and refrigerated or frozen food. Everything you purchase online will be there, waiting for you when you come home.
I was inspired by the opportunity to build something from the ground up. The necessary hardware for the service, the business model, and the organization. Of course, Nowaste knew a lot about technology and platforms, supply chains, and IT solutions. I had plenty of experience in product development and industrialization. But being the first with something means encountering obstacles. We’ve had to stop, backtrack, and solve new challenges several times.
One thing has been important to me: the attitude that problems are fun. Because that means there’s something to solve, to develop! The fun part about building from scratch is that you get to do everything. When there are just a few of you building, you get to focus on product development and business models, but you also have to pitch in and take care of things that may not be part of your normal tasks. We have skilled system developers who can write great code, but they have also stood outside in heavy rain testing things out. An outdoor-use refrigerator can be a challenge in a country like Sweden, where there are significant differences between the north and south, and between seasons.
Right now, we’re focused on helping home care services in Swedish municipalities save time and money. Municipalities as a target audience are quite different from the private individuals, we initially envisioned. But E-Drop can be of great benefit to home care services, allowing them to focus on their core business, namely care. The dream of a wide public breakthrough remains; much like when the mailbox succeeded almost 200 years ago.
