VIP delivery: deploying gift boxes to client lists with Getcho

An unsuspecting gift delivery recipient is an elusive target.

Going into 2027, most of the modern logistical tools we have at our disposal - fast shipping, regional carriers, zone skipping, PODs, delivery forensics - all depend on the recipient knowing something’s coming.

Take “fast shipping”. In some markets Amazon delivers in a few hours. What good is that if the receiver isn’t home, doesn’t check their package room, or worst of all, moved to a different address months ago.

Or delivery forensics. If a delivery looks like it might have gone to the wrong place, how can we ask a customer to check for something they’re not expecting?

And how about the state of the art delivery trackers Getcho and Parsel have developed? Send them to a giftee and they will think we have the wrong number.

Shopify orders: what percent are gift orders?

A lot. One imperfect way to know if an order is supposed to be a gift is to compare the billing details to the shipping details. If the customer and billing profile are different it could be a gift delivery. It could also just be a shared account or a family member.

67 Wine explicitly adds a “gift” checkbox on their checkout so they have a bit more certainty.

Over half of gift deliveries don’t include the phone number for the recipient - that is, the sender enters their own phone. They want to keep the order a surprise.

Mass distribution projects: how brands distribute promotional products with Getcho

Getcho works with businesses to distribute big orders to gift lists. Recently a VC firm tapped Getcho to deploy 60 devices to VIPs in New York City, San Francisco and about 5 other cities nationwide. The task was to give the customer a portal to enter their address and choose an hour delivery window.

We already support customer-timed delivery: the Getcho tracking link has a time-picker that allows customers to pick their delivery time, usually a 30-minute window depending on the distance. Moreover, since gift delivery is such a common use case, we have designed these trackers to let the recipient know they are scheduling a gift delivery with enough information to trust it, but not too much information to spoil the surprise.

Courier coverage in every major American city

Great, we can figure out when folks need something delivered. But how can Getcho hit two-hour, one-hour and 30-minute windows all over the country?

Getcho has access to couriers everywhere. Based on time selections, Getcho FedEx overnighted a big box of units to strategic outposts where couriers were free to pick-up on a schedule and hit windows.

In cities where Getcho doesn’t have access to physical space, we lean on Warp Crossdock locations - those are all over the map. We LTL or FedEx larger shipments and use our local courier networks to distribute.

In San Francisco specifically we partnered with GodSpeed courier to receive and deliver about 40 shipments.

Getcho hit every window and their partner boasted a perfect deployment, every unit delivered precisely when the client wanted it.

Sending holiday gift deliveries via courier

A lot of wine merchants work with Getcho; wine is heavy, hard to ship across state lines, and timely.

During the holiday season wine merchants like Flatiron Wines, Eataly, Bitters & Bottles and 67 Wine receive long corporate gifting lists. These are basically spreadsheets with recipients of some holiday order with an address (which is often wrong) and a company name.

Before Getcho existed, the Flatirons of the world would dispatch these orders as they were. Many of them would come back with a return-to-sender. Many would be delivered to old addresses.

“Bonnie hasn’t worked here in 8 years” is a real message from when a company sent a bottle of wine.

Now these businesses use Getcho’s delivery upload system to dump spreadsheets. Getcho enriches delivery information based on building profiles and order information. With no external information we’re able to predict with 97% accuracy which orders will be RTS’ed; our customers can hold these orders back and request more information, knowing the rest will be delivered smoothly.