With services like GrubHub, Postmates, Uber, and Amazon Prime same-day delivery getting us what we need or where we want to go in anywhere from minutes or hours, many people are relying more and more heavily on these on-demand conveniences. Which is why former college roommates, Yakir Gola and Rafael Ilishayev, both 23, hit gold with GoPuff, the business they founded together while at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
In a nutshell, GoPuff is described as a “Wawa on wheels” (a popular Philly-based convenience store), which can deliver anything from beer and soft drinks, snacks, household items, small electronics like phone chargers, tampons, toilet paper… basically anything you might possibly need, at all hours of the day and night and within a half hour, for just $1.95.
Although the service has only been around for a couple of years, GoPuff is already available in 11 cities across the country including Philadelphia where it launched, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C., and more, with plans of expansion in 2017.
As you can imagine, due to the nature of the business, which caters mostly to millennials and college students and runs until 4:30 a.m., GoPuff delivery personnel have seen some crazy things in the short time the service has been around. A spokesperson from GoPuff reached out to us to reveal some of the more, uh, shall we say colorful customers they’ve encountered on their routes.
“There’s a woman in Philadelphia that’s naked every time we deliver to her, like all day every day.”
“In Austin, Texas, there’s a group of strippers that order goPuff straight to the stage while they’re working… snacks and everything.”
“One time these Philly college kids ordered more than $1,000 worth of alcohol at like 5 p.m. Must have been one hell of a party because they ordered another $300 worth by 11 p.m. Gave me an extra $20 to tow away their empties!”
“Some guy had me deliver straight to his bathroom, left the front door open and everything. Like actually wouldn’t accept delivery until we were outside the bathroom door… TP on-demand.”
“This guy orders from us just to flirt with us. Tries to pick up the delivery driver every time.”
“This one girl was so inebriated, she didn’t remember ordering goPuff. But when I showed up and told her she ordered from us 30 mins ago she was like “WTF,” but then became overjoyed and crushed a pint of Ben + Jerry’s ice cream in like 3 mins.” (Side note: this happens at least once a night)
“One time in Boston, I delivered condoms to a couple who were hanging out butt naked in a hammock… just a bit awkward.”
“There’s a girl who has ordered Plan B at least a dozen times.”
“This guy ordered Trojan Ultra Ribbed condoms from us, but we were sold out that particular night, so we called to let him know we could deliver Magnums instead. His girlfriend answered the phone and said to cancel the order because the Magnums would be too big for him.”
“This girl ordered tampons in Philly at 4:31 a.m., exactly 1 min after we stopped delivery service – and she was located outside our zone. We called her to tell her we closed up shop and that she was outside our delivery zone. Then she started hysterically crying. So we saved her night and made the delivery because we felt so bad for her, and we’re good guys.”
I hope to this day that girl appreciates the driver who brought her tampons at 4:30 in the morning. Consider these brave men and women everyday heroes.
(Via GoPuff, Philly.com)
