TradeKart - The Last Mile Revolution

In November 2021, I was invited by TradeKart Founder and CEO Alistair McAuley to join him on one of the first deliveries being made to a trade customer. Two years on, I wanted to catch up with Alistair to understand where he is with the journey.

It's two years since we had the day out in the first TradeKart van, what's happened since then? 

Wow...I can't believe it's 2yrs already! It’s hard to believe how much has happened since launching our pilot back in November 21. The good news is we've survived the first 2yrs despite several setbacks and a highly turbulent economic landscape. It was never going to be straightforward to launch a tech start up in such a mature sector and it's been the steepest of learning curves, but at the same time an epic journey! We're now gaining great traction with tradespeople and merchants as they realise there's an easier, more efficient, more sustainable and more cost effective way to work. Plus, the world is changing and the pressure is on to be more digitally relevant to engage with the next generation who are far more tuned in to rapid convenience.

It's clearly been something of a roller-coaster ride, what have been the highs and the lows?

We started the business by gathering a few tradespeople in a local pub - food and beer was the perfect combo for honest feedback about the idea and it worked a treat! The ultimate high is speaking to these same people who now save hours and a ton of money every single week by using TradeKart. Time is our scarcest resource so having built a product that can give back this valuable commodity is a great feeling. It’s a product that's been built by the trade for the trade and they're now starting to spread the word which is amazing - the best marketing team we could wish for! On the flip side, our timing to launch a tech startup was about as bad as it could be. Raising cash throughout this current economic downturn has been seriously tough but fortunately persistence paid off and we've managed to secure an incredible group of investors who have backed our ambition and also offer a vast wealth of experience to tap into. 

Talk us through the current TradeKart proposition?

Since we sat in that van 2yrs ago the proposition has changed a lot but our mission to serve and unite the community through technology still drives us every day. We no longer have a fleet of owned vans as it was never scalable and we've now secured brilliant partnerships with 3rd party drivers (our karters) who ensure we have access to over 20,000 bikes, cars and vans at any time, and that's just in London. We started by just offering decorating products whereas now we serve plumbers, builders, electricians and decorators with over 27,000 products with live stock and price visibility, delivered within as little as just 50 minutes across London. It takes no longer than just a couple of minutes to place an order and from there the customer can track their delivery all the way to their door, just like you would an Uber. 

2yrs ago I never believed we would make this happen so quickly and it’s our commitment to investing in the product development that now puts us in a great place to scale. We’re brand and channel agnostic which means we don’t step on any toes; we own no vans, yet have immediate access to over 100,000 drivers across the UK; and we have no stock, yet we offer one of the biggest range of trade materials on the market, at prices defined by our merchant partners. And the door is open to anyone to come and join us.

A recent addition to our service is that we now offer our merchant partners exclusive access to our driver network for their own deliveries, both to their customers as well as inter-branch, and this has really taken off. It’s called TradeKart:Collect and it's far more cost effective and flexible than delivering via their own fleet.

Which merchants do you now have on board?

The list is growing weekly and it's fantastic that merchants are now knocking on the door to partner and join the platform, after all it costs them nothing to sign up and we bring them new customers. As merchanting is in my blood, it's important we get the balance right between the local independents and the nationals to ensure a brilliant and balanced marketplace offer. Customers could be looking for general consumables or something specific such as boiler spares which are far more specialist. We've just launched with City Plumbing and Huws Gray, 2 of the leading merchants across the UK and we now support over 100 merchant stores across London spanning decorating, plumbing, electrical and general building. This gives us one of the best range of trade materials out there, all accessible at the touch of a button and dropped to your door in an average of 50 minutes!

Read - TradeKart and City Plumbing join forces

What benefits can TK bring to an existing Trade Merchant or Retailer?

The benefits are simple. We help our merchant partners become more digitally relevant which is key when the average customer age in many merchants is in the mid fifties - where will these businesses be in 5-10 years time if they don’t address a new audience? As partners we help them tap into the next generation of digitally savvy tradespeople to bring them new customers. We also partner to grow their share of wallet with existing customers, those who may be stuck on site and can't make it into store - these tradespeople just need materials quickly and we fix that problem. 

Our merchant partners also get exclusive access to our TradeKart fleet of over 100,000 drivers through a simple web portal to book rapid deliveries to their existing account customers, and many also use this service for internal logistics as it's far more cost effective than running their own fleet of vehicles. It essentially turns a fixed cost into a variable one and customers get a next hour delivery vs the current next day offer (the industry norm) - this has really taken off as merchants come under increasing cost pressure in the current climate. It’s also a much more sustainable proposition as we’re all sweating a communally available asset.

What's the geographical area that TK now covers?

We're expanding quickly and we now  service the whole of the M25 plus High Wycombe/South Bucks where we launched. This week we also go live across the whole of the North West including Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, Bolton, Warrington and the Wirral. This is a really exciting step as it tests our scalability and the North West is a very active geography for tradespeople. From early in the New Year we'll start to expand into other cities across the UK and I'd like to think we'll have a national offering by the Summer. 

Read - TradeKart and Lawsons form revolutionary partnership

Which delivery partners are you working with?

Our Karter community is key to our proposition and we’ve now built a tech platform that enables all local and national couriers to plug in and deliver on our behalf, and by the end of this year we’ll have close to 150,000 drivers available across the UK.

Our job is to ensure each one has the capability to deliver a brilliant experience to our trade customers who have many specific requirements. We carefully select each delivery partner to ensure a first class customer experience, after all they’re the face of our brand when handing over the materials. We've got some exciting news to share in the next few weeks which will significantly accelerate our ability to scale our karter community. 

Tell me about the TradeKart team?

We’re building an incredible team and like any start up, we continue to evolve as we explore new opportunities and require new skills. The fact that it’s been such a rollercoaster ride has meant the team have had to cling on and this has created a deep sense of belief across the whole team. It helps that we’re only small, but we’ve got big ambition and this drives natural momentum into the business. We've managed to build a great balance of industry expertise coupled with individuals who scaled many tech businesses such as Deliveroo back in the early days. I’m no techie so I’ve been fortunate to surround myself with some great developers who continually improve our product. We've now deployed over 50 updates of the app and there’s an exciting product roadmap ahead of us. If I take myself out of the equation, the average age of the team is approx 30 and this brings an incredible energy and “can do” spirit, coupled with a low fear of failure. We’ve also recently appointed some great non-exec firepower to support us going forward and ensure we continue to deliver for our investors. 

I heard that you're able to match Screwfix Sprint within the M25, tell me more?

For me it’s not really about matching Screwfix Sprint and we actually have a very different proposition. They offer a quick delivery service for Screwfix products. I’ve used it a few times and it’s a great service but it does only give you access to one merchant, albeit a very good one.

TradeKart is a marketplace that enables tradespeople to access multiple local merchants including live stock and pricing, and delivery within as little as an hour, at the touch of a button. All tradespeople essentially get access to their local trade market in the palm of their hand, and this can be for a bag of screws, a pallet of paint or a boiler.

I think it’s great Screwfix are investing in this space as it demonstrates habits within the trade are clearly changing and the more they continue to invest, the more tradespeople will realise how much time they waste collecting materials from store. The one thing that we do have in common is that we’re both looking to positively disrupt our sector with technology, and this will ultimately improve the lives of tradespeople by giving them back valuable time and money - a great reason to exist!

What does the next 12 months look like?

We should have a national offering to all core trades by this time next year however I’m conscious that scale can be a vanity play and it’s important that at all times we have a robust business model. It’s a significant operational and technological challenge to promise to deliver so many products within less than an hour across the UK’s busiest cities, so wherever we operate, it’s imperative we fail fast, learn fast and ensure we offer our customers a first class experience. Our mantra is to under promise and over deliver at all times, which essentially requires patience, sometimes a weakness for me!!

Steve Collinge is an international speaker, influencer, retail commentator and is Managing Director of Insight Retail Group Ltd and executive editor of Insight DIY. You can follow Steve on LinkedIn here on and contact him via DM at any time.