“I have experience in the travel sector, so about two years ago I started to look at what other areas could be interesting in this space, especially during the pandemic when there was a lot of turmoil,” recalls Duffle Founder & CEO Alexander Trieb of how the concept came into being.

“Jump onto the Duffle Train and lets show what an unbroken travel journey may look like. This is only the beginning.”

– Gebr. Heinemann Co-CEO Max Heinemann

“It was then that I stumbled across travel retail and realised two things. First, it’s not fully digital yet from a passenger experience perspective, which means there is a lot that can be done which has already been done outside of travel retail. And second, the existing solutions were okay but there was room for improvement. I was also surprised at the size of the market. I didn’t realise it was so big.”

Thanks to what Trieb describes as a “lucky coincidence” he met Gebr. Heinemann, whose fledgling innovation hub Gharage was also exploring its digital options. That chance meeting led to the two entities joining forces and Duffle was born. The concept is straightforward. By ordering from the Duffle app, airport passengers can have their orders delivered to the gate (or elsewhere in the terminal), courtesy of ‘runners’ who arrive within minutes with the goods. Duffle, a partnership between Berlin-based Trieb and Gharage, Gebr. Heinemann’s vision hub, connects retailers and food & beverage operators, brands and consumers with the dual aim of increasing passenger convenience and boosting conversion rates.

Duffle currently operates on a percentage-based commission model, plus a per delivery fee, though this may change in the future, Trieb says. The platform recently secured its first client, Danish airports company, Copenhagen Airports. Duffle has just begun alpha testing at Copenhagen Airport with the aim of going live in coming weeks. The inaugural delivery – a bottle of sparkling wine – from the Gebr Heinemann store to a customer at their gate was successfully fulfilled on 18 October.

“We want to do it as conveniently as possible, starting with the departure gate, where passengers can get anything they want within a few minutes delivered to their terminal gate,” says Trieb. “We are also talking to those responsible for the airport lounges, so guests can get the products they have bought delivered directly to the lounge, also at the arrival gates. In the future we want to expand into click & collect stations, maybe even home and hotel deliveries. The idea is to make the shopping experience as simple and as convenient as possible.”

“Imagine if we think of airports as enablers of a new level of reach for a new generation of retailers and brands”

– Gharage

The alpha phase involves testing all the different app components to ensure they do exactly as expected. The same applies to the operations side, to ensure Duffle can fulfil rapid delivery times from the retailer or F&B operator to the passenger.

The platform is currently in the app store review process with Apple Store and Google with a full launch imminent. “It’s been a lot of work since the beginning of the year and I’m most excited about how people will accept Duffle as a service,” says Trieb. “We’ve already done a lot of user testing, interacting with people. So in theory it’s good, now I want to see it in practice.”

A seemingly natural born entrepreneur, Trieb has been on an eventful career journey before launching Duffle. Having worked in the travel industry since 2008, he has already launched and divested two successful companies. The first was Tripwolf, a social travel guide company, which was sold to a German publisher. The second was Travel Audience, a data-driven advertising platform for the travel industry, subsequently acquired by global distribution system travel tech company Amadeus.

Why Duffle? Trieb says the name choice was difficult because many suitable domain titles had already been taken. Ultimately the partners opted for a reference to a duffle bag with a short, snappy title deemed to have international appeal.

The challenges in launching the platform were myriad. Deciding what to focus on first; what not to do; and finding the right team to execute the app were all key. Then it was a matter of getting to market fast, provided the team could find a willing airport partner.

Trieb says Duffle wanted an airport company that was “open-minded”, large enough “but not too large”, and which offered a sufficiently simple airport footprint with plentiful retail opportunities. And from a passenger perspective, it needed to attract a digital-savvy type of traveller.

Copenhagen Airport – where Gebr. Heinemann has been trading since March 2007 – ticked all the boxes, especially as the management was particularly focused on innovation. The Duffle team duly sat down with Copenhagen Airports Senior Director Airport Sales & Negotiations Michael Clausen and Senior Vice President Commercial Peter Krogsgaard to pitch the concept. From there, things moved fast. As do the six ‘runners’ or ambassadors at Copenhagen Airport, a number that Duffle plans to double by the peak holiday season next July.

He says, “We are trying to focus on a digital-savvy native audience. I will be curious to see who else picks Duffle up. It is designed so that everyone should be able to use it. Over the last couple of years, as a result of the pandemic and the older generation trying to understand how to order groceries using their mobile devices, they might also be interested in this, but we want to focus on the digital-savvy customers first.

“We are in final discussions with a couple of airports of a similar size to Copenhagen Airport, staying in the European space for now. We have conversations with larger airports, which are more complex from an operational point of view. Hopefully we will be able to launch in the second half of next year. My goal next quarter is to launch in two or three mid-size airports and then expand, accelerating up to ten airports next year.

“We want to include all categories where you can find all their products in a few clicks on our platform, including F&B, accessories and fashion.

“In terms of working with us, we want to make it as easy as possible. Depending on the partner, we want to do a direct integration into their back-end systems with real-time inventory and updated product catalogues. This is what we have done with Gebr. Heinemann in Copenhagen.

“All the retailer needs to do is fulfil the order when it comes in. From their perspective, they get a new digital growth channel and access to audiences that potentially may not have bought something. Our objective is to create incremental revenues for everyone.

“With the back-end systems, the one thing I was most surprised about was the lack of data. A lot of people don’t know who their consumers are or when they are buying something. Outside travel retail this is very important. Digital also means data, so you can make better decisions and be able to drive things forward. This is where a lot more can be done by collaborating on the data side with different stakeholders and partners.

“Since we are a technology and data company, we can provide a lot of data insights and analytics. This makes it easier for retailers to improve their services, do additional product selection, start targeting and be more effective in their marketing towards consumers.”

Duffle might deploy advanced technology but the key, Trieb insists, is simplicity. “Nowadays a lot of companies aren’t really offering digital services and if they are, it’s too complicated,” he comments. “You either have to download, register or click 17 times to get somewhere. It’s hard to find things and there is a lot more that can be done to make it simpler for people.”

Trieb highlights the problem with “siloed” thinking in our industry, arguing that multiple airline, airport and retail apps complicate and confuse. “From a passenger perspective I don’t understand why I need to do that. It should be a single app, like Uber, that can be connected to everything.

“The way I see it, I am relatively new to the market, which has its pro and cons but the TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes was insightful. It was good to be there this year; the numbers are going up, the revenues are coming in again, people are buying and that is a good trajectory. So it’s perfect timing for us to get into the market.

“The conversations I had show that people are thinking more about digital strategies and how to come up with new innovations in the market. So I think there are a lot of new things that will happen in this space over the next couple of years. The question is what will stick and what won’t. I am very excited to see how the next couple of years will go. It will look very different from what it does today.”