Lee Hnetinka a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and one of the founders of Darkstore, has announced that New York is the latest target market for the e-commerce delivery service. Darkstore, which was founded in San Francisco earlier this year, is responding to growing demand for their service on the East Coast. New York's population density is a perfect fit for a firm that focuses on lightning fast delivery for their e-commerce partners. As Lee Hnetinka said at the time, "For New York City this decision was driven by the demand from many brands that wanted it. As one of the commerce capitals of the world it's no surprise every brand wants to offer an amazing customer experience there and this is what Darkstore enables for them."

Darkstore has been able to achieve same-day and two-day delivery services for a host of different e-commerce sites that do not have traditional brick-and-mortar storefronts. It does this by streamlining the delivery and storage processes for the bussineses. Darkstore works with a series of storage and delivery partners to meet their customers needs. Delivery partners include UberRUSH, Fedex, UPS, and USPS.
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Darkstore has a similar business model to AirBNB and UBER. The company does not actually own any of its own physical storage space. Instead, they use storage partners to store the goods and offer them a revenue share on the commissions received from the e-commerce partner. Currently, Darkstore charges their e-commerice clients a 3% commission on whatever leaves their warehouses; this commission has a minimum of $2 and a cap of $20. Darkstore then gives 70% of this commission to their storage partner and retains the remaining 30%. This has proven lucrative for both Darkstore and their storage partners; for example, Storage SF in San Francisco is able to receive considerably larger per square foot rates for storing Darkstore's goods than they previously charged for storage.

This entire business model is based on volume. Darkstore must ensure that their e-commerce partners are constantly moving product via high-volume orders in order for this model to remain profitable. For this reason, Lee Hnetinka meets with suppliers and checks that their current order volumes are compatible with Darkstores profitability structure.

Since its inception, Darkstore has moved over $800,000 worth of product through its delivery channels. If you'd like more information on Darkstore and what they may be able to offer your e-commerce site, visit their URL: darkstore.com .