Munchies delivery service goPuff expands to Washington, DC

goPuff is heading to its third Northeast city.

The delivery service for munchies, smoking accoutrements and now drugstore items is expanding to Washington, D.C., said cofounder and recent Drexel grad Rafael Ilishayev. It’ll start with five drivers on the ground and up that number as necessary.

goPuff launched in Boston last spring, where the startup has eight drivers per shift doing deliveries. In its flagship market of Philadelphia, goPuff has about 12-13 drivers working per shift, Ilishayev said.

Geared toward college students, goPuff started out as an on-demand delivery service for snacks and smoking paraphernalia, like e-cigarettes, vaporizers and coals for hookahs. It now offers household goods, like laundry detergent, toothpaste and batteries. Next up is over-the-counter medications and organic items (like the stuff you’d find at Whole Foods), Ilishayev said.

In its flagship market of Philadelphia, goPuff has about 13 drivers working per shift.

Have the proliferation of on-demand delivery services like Instacart and Postmates hurt business?

Ilishayev said it hasn’t, because goPuff is faster and cheaper (the delivery fee, that is).

That’s because goPuff has its own warehouse, stocked with goods, as opposed to Instacart and Postmates, which pick up goods from other places. (goPuff’s delivery fee is $1.95 and free with purchases over $30, versus Instacart’s $3.99 delivery fee and Postmates’ $5 fee plus a 9 percent service fee.)

The trade-off is that goPuff’s items are a little more expensive but there’s no delivery minimum like Instacart (and of course, goPuff’s inventory differs from that of Instacart and Postmates).

In order to answer the question of how much inventory to buy, goPuff uses custom software built by developers in Ukraine. (Those developers also built goPuff’s mobile apps.) Before that software, the inventory question was a “big problem,” Ilishayev said. The software really reduced how much inventory the company kept in stock, he said.

goPuff employs about 18 full-time employees. Ilishayev declined to disclose revenues. We’ll disclose that they sent us a care package after we spotted a goPuff ad on the back of a LUCY bus.