“It is costly for me to fly in and out of Hong Kong to ferry these lap tops, LCD TVs or phones to Togo,” he said. “I am now based here but my goods are shipped in containers, which is very risky sometimes”

Serge’s problem is not unique. There are many other cases where shipments have been lost, damaged or delayed because the current tracking systems provided for by some couriers do not provide instant or real-time shipment status updates.

But Serge and many other cross-border traders’ concerns are likely to be mitigated by the establishment of AfterShip.

AfterShip - previously known as Awesome Ship - is a Hong Kong-based company that provides an automated way for online merchants to track packages and send their customers delivery status notifications.

The company is owned by three young entrepreneurs, Teddy Chan, 30, Andrew Chan, 27 (no relation with Teddy) and Dante Tsang, 21, who have put aside their other businesses and studies to operate AfterShip.

AfterShip was started with an initial investment of HK$300,000 and has six employees. It uses web-based technology developed by Teddy Chan, co-owner and chief executive officer, which allows shipments with various courier services to be tracked in real time through one online platform.

AfterShip is the first online business in the world that incorporates tracking services for major global courier companies, offering real-time instant notifications. AfterShip owners have replicated their business model to the rest of the world following the global launch of their business in the United States in early March 2012.

The elder Chan, who had for the last eight years been running his own online retail store, was inspired to develop the AfterShip application after experiencing difficulties in tracking his customers’ shipments.

“While I was running my other business, I found it cumbersome to track the delivery status of orders because I had to rely on a tracking numbers to pull information from a couriers’ website,” said Chan.

He developed the Awesome Ship application to push out notifications to merchants and customers at different points in the shipping cycle, including when the delivery reached their door.

He said since the app was launched, there has been a 15% increase in customers returning to AfterShip - the increase is measured by the rise in user response and feedback.

Chan said ideas like these were more likely to emerge from Hong Kong which was home to some of the biggest sellers on eBay, shipping a high volume and wide range of products.

AfterShip supports over 40 couriers worldwide. The company allows merchants to track up to 500 packages each month for free.

Tracking of 500 to 1000 packages costs US$30 per piece and volume of over 1000 is charged at US$80 per package.

Chan said unlike the traditional methods used by courier companies, AfterShip allows online merchants to link their shopping carts or marketplace seller accounts with AfterShip, which currently supports Amazon, eBay, Magento, Shopify, and Volusion shopping carts. Then, AfterShip automatically imports tracking numbers of all existing or future packages.

It detects tracking numbers of over major couriers worldwide including FedEx, DHL, TNT and UPS.

“Online merchants can see the status of all deliveries in one place. [You can] filter by status to find out any delayed, damaged or undelivered packages and take actions before customers ask,” said Andrew Chan, co-owner and interim head of marketing.

The advancement and involvement of social media in electronic commerce has come in handy for AfterShip as more customers are able to sign up and use the service to track their merchandise.

Chan added that merchants can use their own name and brand when sending notifications through SMS, Email or Twitter to their own customers.

“[Our] customers can customize notifications to make them more personal or insert any marketing messages,” said the younger Chan., “Online merchants can take advantage of the reporting tools to analyze their shipping performance over a specific period of time.”

For Kossi Serge, who is always moving from one place to the other in search of marketable goods for resale in Africa, receiving notifications via SMS is enough assurance that his goods are safely monitored in real-time. He’s a fan of AfterShip.

“As soon as a heard of it, joined and I am now able to see the progress of my container (shipment),” said Serge.