This Startup Lets You Buy a Sofa Online from Overseas and Get It to You for Cheap

Everyone sleeps, everyone eats, and practically everyone shops online. However, almost all international online shopping deals are for small items due to high costs and logistic difficulties in transporting large items across seas on a per-order basis. Meet Ladingo Ltd., an Israel-based startup founded earlier this year that set out to help retailers overcome these challenges.

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Based in Hod Hasharon, a town in central Israel, Ladingo develops a system for optimizing cargo containers that enables maritime shipping companies to combine several international deliveries from one country to another. “Orders from 200 different customers living in the same country who bought from 200 different suppliers in another country can be shipped in a single container, significantly reducing costs,” Hagar Valiano, co-founder and CEO of Ladingo said in a phone interview with Calcalist Wednesday.

Ladingo’s service lets retailers offer international shipping of large household products such as appliances, furniture, bicycles, and grills. When a customer puts in their international shipping address on a Ladingo partner retailer’s site, they instantly receive a shipping quote which includes all costs, taxes, and fees for delivering the item to their doorstep, Valiano said. Once the customer finalizes the order, the retailer ships the item to Ladingo’s domestic processing center, from where the company, through partner maritime shipping carriers, delivers the product to the customer. Currently operating a pilot program, Ladingo has six employees and is looking to expand and raise initial seed funds, Valiano added.