A luxury delivery service for the wealthy is gaining attention.

In the United States, a startup generating hundreds of millions in sales with 'premium customized delivery' is attracting attention.

They offer a personalized service that delivers items to the desired location in a short time, continuing growth based on demand from affluent customers.

Some have praised it as "genius," but the founder describes it as "just delivering," explaining it as a strategy to target a niche market.

Recently, The New York Times introduced the delivery service startup Tote Taxi, which completed a delivery from a famous bakery in Brooklyn, New York, to a hotel in East Hampton, Long Island?a journey of about three hours?for which it received $500 (about 690,750 won).

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Tote Taxi is a company that provides premium customized delivery services between New York and the Hamptons. The base fee starts at $275 (about 380,000 won), and Mercedes Sprinter vans are used as delivery vehicles. Daniela Candela, the 35-year-old founder of Tote Taxi, stated that this kind of premium delivery translates into annual sales amounting to several hundred million won.

Daniela Candela, founder of delivery service startup Tote Taxi. /Tote Taxi Instagram

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Candela came up with the idea for Tote Taxi in 2017 while living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She explained that the inconvenience she experienced traveling back and forth to visit her family in Long Island became the motivation for starting the business.

In November of the same year, Candela participated in a startup competition held in Southampton and won a prize of $15,000 (about 20,720,000 won) with her delivery service idea. Afterwards, she received an additional $5,000 (about 6,907,500 won) in support from her father, who was running a landscaping business, purchased a Sprinter van, and launched the business the following spring.

Tot Taxi Instagram

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At that time, there was no service specializing in delivering daily necessities needed by the upper class in the Hamptons, such as Wellbutrin (an antidepressant), pet medications, golf putters, dresses, or keys.

There was significant demand from high-end consumers?some would even travel from New York to East Hampton just to buy a bag of apples?but most items had to be transported home using a postal bus or a chauffeur. Candela recognized this gap in the market.

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Tote Taxi currently operates with three full-time employees, contract drivers, and two Sprinter vans. The client list is not disclosed for security reasons, but it is said that some well-known celebrities use the service. On one occasion, the company even had contact with the United States Secret Service, and at that time, the item in the back seat was a piece of artwork.

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Tote Taxi is expanding its business, focusing on affluent areas in the United States. In 2022, it entered Palm Beach, Florida, and recently began offering luggage delivery to campsites. An additional service delivering snack baskets from Red Horse Market is also available for $150.