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Japan’s Ecbo launches ‘Airbnb of baggage storage’ in Taiwan as first overseas expansion

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Tokyo-based Ecbo, the Japanese startup offering the Ecbo Cloak luggage storage service and the Ecbo Pickup service, held a press conference in Taipei on Friday to announce the launch of the luggage storage service in Taiwan as its first overseas expansion. Our readers may recall that the company stated that it is looking at the expansion into 50 countries by 2025 when it announced its Series B round in June. The Taiwan expansion is made possible through partnership with local travel trading company Sanpu Travel Group (三普旅遊集團) and H.I.S. Taiwan (三賢旅行社). According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, or simply JNTO, more than 21 million Japanese visited Taiwan last year, and it is said that about 70% of them were forced to spend 15 to 30 minutes to find available coin lockers. Thinking about Taiwan Main Station, for example, only a few hundred coin lockers are available within its neighborhood while approximately 500,000 people use the public transit gateway every day. By bringing the Ecbo Cloak service into Taiwan, it may help not only Japanese and other foreign visitors but also local people leave and store their luggage safely and comfortably. In Taiwan, the service is initially offered at 30…

From left: Tomokazu Saze / 佐瀬友一 (Taipei Branch Manager, H.I.S. Taiwan / 三賢旅行社) – Shinichi Kudo / 工藤慎一 (CEO, Ecbo) – Mic Inoue Hsieh / 謝長成 (CEO, Sanpu Travel / 三普旅行社)

Tokyo-based Ecbo, the Japanese startup offering the Ecbo Cloak luggage storage service and the Ecbo Pickup service, held a press conference in Taipei on Friday to announce the launch of the luggage storage service in Taiwan as its first overseas expansion. Our readers may recall that the company stated that it is looking at the expansion into 50 countries by 2025 when it announced its Series B round in June. The Taiwan expansion is made possible through partnership with local travel trading company Sanpu Travel Group (三普旅遊集團) and H.I.S. Taiwan (三賢旅行社).

According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, or simply JNTO, more than 21 million Japanese visited Taiwan last year, and it is said that about 70% of them were forced to spend 15 to 30 minutes to find available coin lockers. Thinking about Taiwan Main Station, for example, only a few hundred coin lockers are available within its neighborhood while approximately 500,000 people use the public transit gateway every day. By bringing the Ecbo Cloak service into Taiwan, it may help not only Japanese and other foreign visitors but also local people leave and store their luggage safely and comfortably.

In Taiwan, the service is initially offered at 30 locations in Taipei, including Jing Sheng Yu flagship store / 京盛宇 旗艦店 (Taiwanese tea), Jin Yu Tang City Hall store / 金玉堂 市府店 (stationery), and Lohas Pottery flagship store on Dihua Street / 陸寶 迪化街旗艦店 (ceramic tea utensils). In addition to aiming to make the service available at 500 locations in Taiwan by 2025, the company want to allow customers to easily order delivering their luggage through the app.

Founded in May of 2015 by CEO Shinichi Kudo (工藤慎一), who speaks both Japanese and Chinese fluently, Ecbo began offering its service in January of 2017, matching people who want to leave their luggage with places to store it. The service allows tourists to leave their luggage at on-street locations such as cafes, beauty salons, and manga cafes. Now available at more than 1,000 locations, it can also offer a reservation function and insurance for checked luggage while all payments can be made by credit card.

via PR Times

Too early for check-in? No worry, Tokyo cafes offering ‘Airbnb of baggage storage’

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Ecbo launched their on-demand Ecbo Cloak service on Wednesday, aimed at travelers looking to find temporary storage for their luggage by employing the unused space of cafes, bike rentals shops and others. Ecbo was founded by Shinichi Kudo who previously worked at Uber Japan as an intern. The company launched the Ecbo on-demand storage service in June of 2015, and expanding from this, with Ecbo Cloak they begin a new service that incorporates the concept of a sharing economy by finding a use for the idle space in retail stores. The idea for ecbo cloak came to Kudo in Shibuya where he was approached by a traveler to Japan and questioned with, “I’m looking for a coin locker that can store my suitcase.” Lockers capable of fitting a suitcase were scarce or already in use, leading Kudo to the conclusion, unexpectedly, that herein lies a business opportunity. It is true, travelers can request to store their luggage at the front desk or cloak room of their hotel before check-in time, but making a trip to the hotel solely for that purpose, especially in the middle of the day with so much to…

Image credit: Ecbo

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based startup Ecbo launched their on-demand Ecbo Cloak service on Wednesday, aimed at travelers looking to find temporary storage for their luggage by employing the unused space of cafes, bike rentals shops and others.

Ecbo CEO Shinichi Kudo

Ecbo was founded by Shinichi Kudo who previously worked at Uber Japan as an intern. The company launched the Ecbo on-demand storage service in June of 2015, and expanding from this, with Ecbo Cloak they begin a new service that incorporates the concept of a sharing economy by finding a use for the idle space in retail stores. The idea for ecbo cloak came to Kudo in Shibuya where he was approached by a traveler to Japan and questioned with, “I’m looking for a coin locker that can store my suitcase.” Lockers capable of fitting a suitcase were scarce or already in use, leading Kudo to the conclusion, unexpectedly, that herein lies a business opportunity.

It is true, travelers can request to store their luggage at the front desk or cloak room of their hotel before check-in time, but making a trip to the hotel solely for that purpose, especially in the middle of the day with so much to take in, is annoying. In the case of vacation rentals such as Airbnb and HomeAway, travelers cannot count on leaving their luggage before check-in or receiving a key. With Ecbo Cloak travelers can leave their luggage in a convenient location at the city center, enjoy the city care-free, and head to their accommodations at their leisure.

Click to enlarge.

Actually, even in my case, I often leave my suitcase containing my travel necessities in a coin locker at the station when I have appointments in Tokyo before heading to Haneda or Narita (International Airport) or when I have to head to a meeting immediately after returning home to Japan. Here, a problem; when VIPs from overseas like presidents visit Tokyo the use of all coin lockers is suspended in the greater metropolitan area for security purposes. Since Ecbo Cloak is available during the opening hours of the business that collects the luggage, it can be used without having to worry about the above-mentioned case of the coin lockers. Personal identification is required to use the service, and the person responsible for collecting the luggage confirms the user at the drop off, thereby reducing the risk of crime/incidents.

Click to enlarge.

It is said around 30% of visitors to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics used vacation rentals like Airbnb. And it has already been said that Tokyo, host of the 2020 Olympics, is in overwhelmingly short supply of hotels for such an event, so it is safe to assume the use of vacation rentals will increase further. Additionally, with vacation rentals unable to meet the demands for flexibility by their customers (e.g., early check-in/late check-out), Ecbo Cock is expected to grow into a service that fills the gap between customers and suppliers.

So far Ecbo has received funding from Anri, and employs ten full-time core members, including interns. In addition to expanding into Kyoto and Osaka within the year, they want to offer their service at more than 10,000 stores.

Translated by Amanda Imasaka
Edited by Masaru Ikeda