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Local Business Stories – Zeek

How do Hong Kong businesses embrace changes and flourish in the new normal?

To bring smart logistics life, we need to race against time.

Vincent Fan | Co-Founder and COO, Zeek

Chapter 1: Reshaping the story of last-mile delivery

Zeek, an innovative smart logistics platform with its roots in Hong Kong, provides real-time online-to-offline (O2O) delivery services to merchants across various industries, meeting the market’s diverse needs for the instant delivery of food and parcels as part of last-mile logistics. Since its official launch in 2019, the business has processed more than five million delivey orders.1

What is O2O delivery service? “If a restaurant lacks an ordering app, we assist in its system development. If a boutique is only one step short of delivering its products, we provide logistics support,” explained Vincent Fan, Co-Founder and COO of Zeek. But behind this simple description of the company’s core business lies a sophisticated operating system supported by big data, logistics technology and artificial intelligence.

The platform is capable of automatically matching the types of ordered items and routes with corresponding delivery personnel to provide instant or same-day courier services for online stores. It also offers customised one-stop takeaway software and operation solutions for food delivery marketplaces and restaurants. By leveraging business intelligence and analysing relevant data, the platform helps customers launch promotional plans targeted to their audiences.

Chapter 2: Empowering business transformation in the face of pandemic

Many small and medium-sized enterprises are set to accelerate their digital transformation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to remain unscathed amid a drop in bricks-and-mortar retail sales, merchants are determined to digitise their businesses, even if they haven’t yet been equipped with an online ordering system.

“We are committed to providing customers with flexible solutions. Regardless of how they receive an order, we have a way to send the nearest delivery staff to provide proper assistance,” said Vincent. This commitment to customers represents a great responsibility for Vincent and his team, who consistently race against time to deal with rising order numbers and allocate delivery resources, as they seek to strike a balance between demand and supply around the clock.

In addition to food and beverage delivery, Zeek believes that local consumer demand for lifestyle courier services will continue to rise, and the total number of orders processed by the company is expected to grow to more than 15 million in 2020.

Chapter 3: Overcoming additional challenges

Although Zeek’s overall business has grown during the pandemic, the company has at times faced transient cash flow problems, as B2B business revenue generally lags behind expenditure. “For our larger-scale customers, settling payments takes a considerable amount of time. However, for our courier staff, the faster their salary is paid, the keener they tend to be,” noted Vincent. “Therefore, maintaining sufficient liquidity is key to supporting our daily operations and business growth. In this sense, HSBC, our banking partner, has provided us with strong backing.”

He added, “Traditional cash-on-delivery methods involve a lot of cash transactions, which inevitably hold up the delivery process. But user-friendly electronic payment systems, such as PayMe for Business, help reduce cash transactions and facilitate payments between different stakeholders, such as our merchants, our couriers and us. As a result, such systems can improve the customer experience, our delivery efficiency, and even the accuracy of our data analysis.”

Chapter 4: Achieving new heights with HSBC

HSBC has maintained close communication with Zeek to understand its business plans and capital needs. Through the GBA+ Technology Fund, an initiative dedicated to supporting innovative technology start-ups in the new economy, HSBC has provided Zeek with flexible and timely working capital solutions, helping the company to seize growth opportunities.

At present, Zeek’s footprint extends to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and other countries. As a next step, it plans to expand to Taiwan, as well as to other Southeast Asian markets, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia.

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