Bistip.com: A Web-based Courier Service

At FOWAB # 5 last Saturday, I had the opportunity to speak at length with two of the people behind Bistip.com, founder Willy Ekasalim and developer Panggi Libersa. We spoke about the services and facilities available from Bistip.com.

Bistip, short for either Bisnis Titipan or Bisa Titip is a web-based courier service that provides facilities for those who wish to entrust their items or have items entrusted to them for delivery purposes for a fee. Members can also post the delivery route for their items.

At first, frankly I was not really interested with this online service, aside from the design, the other reason is that I could use other ways to look for friends whom I could consign goods, like via Twitter or Facebook, I mean we could talk about it over private messages. It means the medium for entrusting goods from my friends still can not be replaced by BisTip.

However, after talking with the people behind BisTip, I'm interested to explore more of the services. Toni from Navinot also have some advice and opinions regarding this service. You can read them on his site, while you can read my thoughts about it below.

The first thing that attracted me of course was the dedication. Now BisTip at least already has three employees and the office to support the development of their services. The principles of Agile Web Development is carried out in the application development. I think the main emphasis of the service is community, how they can build their bistipers and wanted bistipers to build their communities, how BisTip can create a community that grows and still maintain a level of trust among members. Because for now, BisTip works only as some kind of place to find and offer courier services.

Strengthening these communities could also use some ways, such as the addition of a simple game mechanics. Currently it has a rating facility, which plays an important role because trust is a key element in Bistip service. Perhaps by adding more attractive rating elements members could be more enthusiastic in becoming an intermediary and can certainly provide more detailed informations about the bistipers for other consumers. Or it could also provide a facility to upload photos, so that the bistipers can demonstrate the goods delivery and build their reputation.

Currently BisTip has 60 members. Perhaps these 60 people can be nurtured and become some kind of brand ambassador with more facilities, certainly to popularize BisTip service, as the place (community) for a safe and reliable goods entrusting.

BisTip also must consider about monetization. Services like this of course should maintain a lasting power. As well as sensitive to the implementation of paid systems, the growth of users (community) to be achieved by BisTip takes time, and of course the cash to cover operational costs must be considered.