Shipping Startup Flexport Is in Crisis Mode Heading Into the Holiday Season
The startup is dealing with skepticism from key customers amid the fallout from a stretch of embarrassingly public drama.
Christine Douheret, whose business sells food storage containers and other kitchen products online, recently got a call from a customer whose package never showed up. Douheret wasn’t sure what had gone wrong. She’d received no notice about a problem from Flexport Inc., the company that she contracts to handle home delivery, so she contacted it. After a full day’s effort, she got an explanation: The job had been outsourced to DoorDash Inc., which canceled it for reasons that were unclear.
Missing packages are a part of any e-commerce operation. What was most bothersome about this situation to Douheret was that Flexport’s software didn’t even tell her that her order had been canceled. Technology is supposed to be a strong point for the company, which has raised $2.35 billion since its 2013 founding from investors like Founders Fund and DST Global. (Bloomberg Beta, the venture-capital arm of Bloomberg LP, is also an investor in Flexport.) With the holiday rush looming, Douheret has to stick with Flexport until yearend—but that could be the end of the line for her. “If we don’t see major improvements by January, I’ll be looking for another company,” she says.