Darkstore helps e-commerce companies to deliver on the same day, has just launched a consumer-facing app called FastAF. The software is only available in Los Angeles right now.
FastAF is built on top of Darkstore, which already has partnerships for same-day delivery with a range of brands that store their goods in Dark stores. With Darkstore, businesses like Nike, Adidas, and Levis can give consumers same-day delivery by storing their goods within the urban distribution centers of Darkstore. There are currently 550 Dark stores spanning 283 towns.
With FastAF, customers can now order the same-day delivery directly from those Dark stores. Currently, FastAF provides 1,200 products from 170 brands. Quick AF worked with DoorDash to manage deliveries and another business to manage returns. Customers will go to the FastAF app to request a return to return an object, and then somebody will pick it up from you and take it back to the Darkstore fulfilment center.
Although all of the items available on FastAF will come from Darkstore, Darkstore customers are not all of the retailers listed in FastAF.
Founder and CEO Lee Hnetinka told that he wanted to have a very good customer experience out of the gate and use the demand to tell whether we should officially partner with those brands. “The way we have chosen the categories and the items are really about what is important and what is necessary in the times right now.”
FastAF features items such as masks, soap, and hand sanitizer, but also shoes, sunglasses, and other things. FastAF offers the goods at MSRP but charges the distribution and fulfilment related fees to customers. Initially, FastAF would waive the delivery charge and propose carrying out free delivery service for a certain sum for orders.
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Hnetinka, you might recall, created WunWun back in 2012 to provide on-demand delivery to businesses and stores. The company, which had been a powerful Postmates competitor, eventually shut down in 2015 and then sold its assets to Alfred.
Hnetinka told me, “We were powering offline online for WunWun.” We had runners who went to local stores and brought stuff to you in as fast as 30 minutes. With Darkstore, we have offline online power. A consumer-facing app has always been the next wave of this to allow all the brands on these e-commerce companies to deliver goods quickly. We thought there was no place to get the products that you have a deep passion for. These are the types of labels you were previously unable to get quickly.
Conclusion:
FastAF is currently available only in Los Angeles but the intention is to be released later this year in New York. San Francisco is on the road map, but no precise timeline was shared by Hnetinka. 
