Bazuca Battalion

A virtual corner store seeks to capture the Santiago market with one-hour deliveries.

TWO SUZUKI DIRT BIKES RUMBLE ON THE LIP OF THE CURB, waiting for an opening in the nonstop traffic on Vitacura Avenue. When a break in the action comes on the Santiago thoroughfare, the motorcycles jump into the steady stream of cars and the current sweeps them uptown. Dressed in The North Face jumpsuits--splashed with a bold orange, blue and black design--and bearing backpacks emblazoned with a Mohawked figure aiming at a bull's-eye, the drivers zoom across town to reach their destination in 60 minutes or less for delivery service Bazuca.com.

Back at headquarters, motorcycles roar past the drive-thru window collecting orders--bags filled with movies, food, alcohol, cigarettes and a variety of other items, including DVD players--destined for Santiago's wealthy neighborhoods. Inside, the employees scoot back and forth between shelves of orders and the constantly updated computer screen. And in a back room, phones ring for attention, as rows of operators punch package requests into the Bazuca delivery data bank.

Bazuca.com is a virtual corner store for a wide variety of items, with the added plus of speedy home delivery. For Domino's, Samsung and others looking to sell their wares online, the new service opens all kinds of possibilities. In this Internet age of "I want it all and I want it now," one of the biggest cyber-holes is slow delivery. But, the new Web warriors say, companies like Bazuca are helping to change all of that.

"Our objective is to open new sales channels and to take the first steps in the new Internet market," says An Wurmann, electronics product manager for Samsung Chile. Samsung's sales through Bazuca are minimal when compared with traditional channels such as department stores. Chileans still like to touch what they buy and are hesitant to use credit cards online. "But that will change in an exponential manner," says Wurmann, who plans to be ready when the demand explodes.

Whether that day will ever come is still an open question. New York-based Kozmo.com, the largest and best-known of the U.S. delivery services, has recently laid off 300 employees, closed offices and changed management in search of a business model that works. However 1-year-old Bazuca is counting on speedy delivery and quality customer service, both novelties in Chile, as well as in the other Latin American countries where Bazuca plans to expand.

Jumping the curb. With Internet penetration still low, Bazuca executives are focusing on such upscale Santiago neighborhoods as Las Condes, Providencia and Vitacura. Founders Nikolas Boetsch and his partner Santiago Muzzo offer one-hour delivery using an Internet-based data system and a fleet of skilled messengers on high-performance motorcycles. The service takes orders via Internet or telephone, and then dispatches the products to one of the waiting motorcycles stationed outside.

When Bazuca took just seven minutes to make one delivery, the stunned recipient initially refused to accept his video and soda order. "He came out of his house and said 'Where's the camera?' He really thought it was some sort of publicity stunt and he was unable to comprehend that this was our way of operating," Boetsch recalls with a laugh.

That sort of service helped attract clients like Samsung and Domino's. Users of the Bazuca site, for example, can add a Domino's pizza as part of their order, and Bazuca then redirects the order via fax to Domino's, slicing off a commission in the process. (Domino's makes the delivery.) The company also has an ever-growing roster of products, including whiskey, cigarettes and electronics such as DVD players and Palm Pilots. It hopes to soon add a pharmacy service that will supply everything from toilet paper to prescription drugs.

"Movies are our main hook, but they don't turn much of a profit," says Boetsch, who also describes delivering two packs of cigarettes and a can of Coca-Cola as "profitless business." The company charges a fee of roughly US$1.20 for orders of less than $7.

Bazuca began with an original investment of $1.7 million and plans to raise an additional $4 million. Growing quickly, with a reported average 33% increase monthly in revenues, the company projects annual revenues of $1 million for 2000.

Its survival strategy includes boosting the average order from the current $9 and expanding services. For example, the recently incorporated select-a-gift section includes a search engine that recommends gifts based on price range, or the sex or the age of the recipient. Currently, the options include gift certificates, sunglasses, flowers, fine wines and children's games. Most of the gifts are supplied to Bazuca on consignment, thus avoiding large investments in inventory.

Another element of the Bazuca expansion strategy is its 15-person advisory committee. Founders Boetsch and Muzzo packed the board with the who's who of the Chilean business elite. The quick-delivery upstarts asked these advisers to provide capital and also to commit 10 hours a month of their time. From this base, Bazuca has been able to reap the benefits of their extensive business contacts.

"For months we wanted to present an advertising project with Copec [a chain of service stations throughout Chile] and no one would meet with us," says Muzzo. "Then I asked one of our board members to make a call and within a week we made the presentation and inked the deal."

Whether the high-level contacts and snappy service will be enough to keep Bazuca going strong remains to be seen. Clearly, though, the virtual retailer is stretching the market in new ways. In fact, the e-commerce portal recently added bungee-jumping packages from an extreme sports amusement park.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Freedom Magazines, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group