Kontena

Sending parcels or goods from Europe to West Africa often means using groupage containers, where several senders share the same container. Booking a share of that space is still largely done by phone or messaging apps, with no clear pricing up front and no way of following the shipment once it has left.

The project targets the corridor between European ports (Genoa, Marseille, Antwerp) and West African destinations (Dakar, Abidjan, Bamako, Conakry). It needed a single platform able to handle three kinds of users, namely customers, carriers and partner traders, with strict business rules on floor space, pricing and personal data.

BarkelTech built a web application and an iOS and Android mobile app that share the same database: the same accounts, the same data and the same security rules. The platform brings together four services: buying container space by the square metre, home collection on quotation, matching senders with travellers who carry parcels, and shipment tracking with built-in messaging.

Partners (carriers and traders) submit an application, are vetted, and can then publish their listings. Every shipment gets its own tracking code, which the sender can use to follow it. Pricing and floor-space validation are centralised in a shared business core used by both web and mobile, so the same calculation is never written twice. Access rules are enforced directly by the database, and administration (moderation, disputes, application checks) is handled from a web back office. The platform is available in French, English and Italian.