A preferred marketplace for transport and logistics professionals, Upply brings increased transparency and fluidity to the supply chain market. Highly innovative in terms of data and AI, Upply uses KYC and payment services provided by Webhelp Payment Services. For more details, we spoke to Christophe de Sahb, Business Developer at Webhelp Payment Services.
Launched in November 2018, Upply‘s mission is to help supply chain and transport firms control volatile freight rates by accessing prices and transport capacities in real time.
Several initiatives have followed:
- Launch of a service for real-time comparison of transport prices in 2018
- Launch of a price analysis and trends functionality in spring 2019
- Launch of a marketplace for road transport in France in July 2019
Data science, AI and Marketplace for supply chain optimisation
Upply combines business expertise and data science: the fast-growing company currently employs 110 people, including 9 data scientists, and processes 150 million data updates every week. It’s a winning formula, since more than 700 companies have registered on the Upply marketplace since July 2019!
Marketplace offers its users – hauliers, shippers and charterers – a direct digital connection service and a valuable decision-making tool.
The platform collects data (prices, meteorological data, financial indices and economic indicators, etc.) and analyses it using mathematical algorithms and advanced machine learning methods.
Xavier Fraval, Product Director at Upply, details the company’s approach: “Thanks to the marketplace, we give all players – large or small, old or new – free access to offers and requests that correspond to their transport needs, using a matching algorithm.”
How Webhelp Payment Services manages KYC and Upply’s payments
“We started working with Upply in January 2019. Thanks to the pragmatism of this start-up and its agile mode of operation, our KYC and payment solutions were able to be integrated into marketplace in just four months,” explains Christophe de Sahb, Business Developer at Webhelp Payment Services.
As of July 2019, we have enabled payment by bank transfer (denominated in euros), which is heavily used in the B2B market. Bank card and SEPA direct debit payment will be available in early 2020.
As Upply states, prices are freely set and negotiated between the client and the carrier, with full transparency. For the marketplace service, Upply receives a management fee corresponding to 5% of the transport price, shared equally between the parties (2.5% for each).
A customised onboarding and payment solution based on a specific API
As Upply is ‘API centric‘, it is natural that they chose this solution. “Our API solution builds on the one we successfully implemented for our Rungis marketplace customer”, emphasises Christophe de Sahb.
Tight deadlines and a challenging level of demand for the Webhelp Payment Services team. “We had to work intensively to produce specific diagrams, because, for example, Upply wanted one invoice for the seller and another for the buyer for each payment”, adds Christophe de Sahb.
In practice, these two invoices are produced by Upply and forwarded to Webhelp Payment Services, which is then responsible for overall reconciliation.
“We have prepared a specific system for Upply, from ordering through to delivery”, explains Christophe de Sahb. That’s why we organised technical workshops between the teams, particularly around certain key themes: payment, identification and vendor onboarding (linked to KYC and AML regulations), invoicing and reconciliation, and finally pay out (remittance of funds).
“Upply’s tools and operating methods allow for a successful balance in relationships among all players in the supply chain, today in Europe and tomorrow worldwide. We are delighted to be of service in this great technical and human adventure”, concludes Christophe de Sahb.
Also read:
B2B Marketplaces – Limits of the Marketplace model for Global Account customers (1/2)
B2B – Marketplace or Drop Shipping: It is urgent not to choose (2/2)
