A new delivery app in the Big Apple charges $5 to bring designer clothing to shoppers’ doors within 50 minutes – and its fashion-obsessed couriers offer to wait while customers try on their purchases.
Launched in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2021, Ole (no accent on the “e,” but still pronounced “o-lay”) has inked deals with some 10 boutiques in Manhattan – including Atelier, Cynthia Rowley, Kirna Zabete and Simkhai.
The app’s couture-savvy couriers — who are on bicycles in the city and drive cars in the suburbs — deliver dresses, jeans, bags and shoes with delivery workers who might even offer their opinion on a fit.
“These are delivery people who are interested in fashion,” co-founder Gal Aharon told The Post. “Half of them are women and some are fashion students at FIT,” or models, Aharon added.
The so-called try-and-buy service quietly launched about five months ago in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, expanding to Long Island and certain parts of New Jersey as well, where it promises same day delivery within a three-hour window from 6 PM to 9 PM.
One recent delivery was made to a coffee shop in Manhattan where two young women ordered a couple of bags, keeping one and sending the extra one back with the courier.
Another customer in Hoboken ordered several dresses from Nili Lotan on Duane Street in Tribeca for the Met Gala last week, enlisting the courier’s opinion on which dress looked best.
Ole makes money on each item that’s sold on its platform, with retailers giving the company a percentage of the sale, Aharon said. The average Ole transaction is about $400.
While other retailers offer same day delivery, including Net-a-Porter which charges $25, none promise such a short window as 50 minutes or return the unwanted items on the spot.
For retailers, the service is a perk for their most frequent shoppers and it cuts down on the rate of returns as well as the time valuable merchandise is not in the store available for someone else to purchase.
“It’s a sales driver for us,” said Sofia Ajodan, vice president of merchandising and sales for Simkhai, which has a boutique in SoHo that has been sending merchandise to its best customers via Ole.
What’s more, she said, “A typical return might take two weeks to get back to the store, which is critical selling time we are missing out on.”
The delivery workers, who don black T-shirts with the Ole logo and branded Ole back packs, are instructed to wait up to 15 minutes outside an apartment building and are summoned by the customer when they are finished vetting their purchases.
It’s rare that Ole has to send a notification informing the customer that their 15 minutes are over, Aharon said.
“People are generally aware that someone is waiting,” she added.
But the delivery workers are instructed not to leave until customers have signed off on the transaction, either keeping the items or sending some back to the store.
All of the merchandise arrives in boxes and dresses are steamed by the store before they are neatly folded into the packaging for their brief journey.
“It blew me away that the delivery person waits for the return,” Ajodan said.
“The delivery workers are not schlubby-looking,” she added. “It’s similar to an Uber Black driver” who arrives in luxury vehicles.
Customers only pay for what they keep – and the $5 delivery fee. But if they choose not to try on the clothing right away – as some 40% of Ole’s customers – they are charged for the entire order until they summon Ole to pick up the items they don’t want.
In addition to the low delivery fee, delivery workers are Ole’s greatest point of differentiation in a crowded field – and they are carefully vetted with two in-person interviews.
“We ask them whether they are service oriented, interested in fashion and we present them with certain scenarios to see how they react,” Aharon said.
By the end of the year, Aharon expects Ole to have some 50 retailers signed on – but not the Chanel’s and Gucci’s of the fashion world.
“It’ll take time to bring them into the fold,” she said.
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