EEI announces a new... app?!

EEI Corp's [EEI 6.75 ?3.30%] app is available for download on Google Play (no word on iOS or other platforms yet), and is intended to make shipping and deliveries easier for small and medium-sized enterprises.

A quick glance at the website shows that eCarga is really a few different products rolled-up under one name. “eCarga Na!” matches truckers with businesses with shipping needs. “eCarga Tsamba” tracks and sells partial-load space on scheduled deliveries. “eCarga Negosyo” offers contract trucking and “tailored” solutions. “eCarga Fleet” offers a platform-based way for businesses to manage their in-house trucking networks and deliveries.

EEI is targeting to have 400 active users by the end of this year, and 1,500 active users by the end of 2022. Initially, eCarga will only cover Luzon, but EEI plans a phased roll-out of the app into other regions of the country over the next three years.

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While pretty much anything logistics-related is going to be in demand in the coming decades, not all segments of the logistics space are going to grow at the same rate. Profitability between the segments will not be uniform.

Even within the same segment, some approaches will work much better than others. EEI’s approach here feels like a relatively low-risk attempt at something with tremendous potential upside. I’m not sure if this is an internal system that EEI used to track its own fleet of shipping/delivery trucks, but if it is, EEI would definitely get bonus points from me for figuring out a way to monetize an internal tool.

This kind of app is the holy grail of the logistics industry, where so many components of that industry rely on things that do not scale very easily or cheaply  (trucks, warehouses, international shipping networks).

If eCarga gains traction this will be a very interesting development for EEI, as it will supply a treasure trove of actionable data that other companies would pay dearly to access. If it doesn’t, they’ll hopefully have gained enough business intel through the limited public use of their system to figure out a sustainable pivot.

There are a lot of these apps in the marketplace in countries all around the world, but there is nothing even close to The One Logistics App To Rule Them All. Will eCarga be that app? Probably not. But could it still be profitable and useful to EEI in many different (and perhaps unexpected) ways? Absolutely.

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