Steve Orenstein had just exited a business, and was looking for his next project, when he experienced frustration ordering items online.
“I kept on missing the courier and not knowing when the courier was arriving,” he tells Azzet.
“There was a point in time where I had a courier ring me and leave me this fairly abusive text voicemail, because he'd been trying to deliver a package to my apartment multiple times and hadn't been able to.”
This led Orenstein to create Zoom2U, an e-commerce company that allows customers to track and chat with couriers carrying their parcels in an upgraded version of the trace and track system.
Through Zoom2U, customers can choose when they want their parcel delivered or dispatched and track it along its entire journey.
Zoom2U, is designed to make ordering packages easier and help the 65% of shoppers who opt for same-day quick delivery.
From there, Orenstein began his journey to join the Australian e-commerce market. This is the 10th largest in the world, with Australians spending A$64 billion online in 2023 on over one billion parcels.
Rocky beginnings
From his personal experience, Orenstain was also inspired to create a business that prioritised customer experience.
“I just focus on building the best solution for our customers, and different products will just suit different types of customers,” he says.
“I think it's for us it’s understanding who our target customer is, and then making sure that we're providing real value to those customers.
“From a delivery point of view, if you receive a delivery via Zoom2U, you can rate that and give it a thumbs up or thumbs down, and so it allows us to track, in real-time exactly what's what's happening at a customer point of view.”
While from a business and technological standpoint Orenstein had the experience to get the company off the ground, he said the “two-sided marketplace” system posed a challenge.
Orenstein describes Zoom2U as a “two-sided marketplace”, due to the needs of both customers and delivery drivers. He said at the start there were some bumps in the road when building the business due to the delicate balance of the driver-to-customer ratio.
“Sometimes you have too many drivers, and then they would leave because they didn't have enough work for them,” he says.
“And so it was the managing of that was probably one of the most difficult parts of building the two-sided marketplace.”
Changing tactics
Eventually, they hit their stride and grew to create a subscription-based service called Locate2U, where businesses could use their services. Amart Furniture, Bing Lee and SuperPharmacy have used their services to optimise delivery routes in 2020.
“We started with this marketplace business, Zoom2U, and then we had a lot of customers that were wanting to use the technology that we built for Zoom2U, but for their own business,” he says.
“Our target audience today are companies that are managing their own fleet of drivers.”
Locate2U was founded in 2020 and luckily for Orenstein, he found himself in the one industry that benefitted from COVID-19 as online purchases grew 57% year on year with Australians spending a record $50.46 billion that year.
“COVID was very positive for us because obviously deliveries went crazy,” Orenstein says.
Now, the business has grown to be just over the $12 million mark in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV) and Orenstein says they continue to grow. In the first half of the 2025 financial year, Zoom2u managed to increase their group revenue by 10% to $3.2 million from $2.9 million in the same period last year.
Expanding globally
One of the main forms of growth Orenstein is eyeing for the business is to expand Zoom2U and Locate2U to the global market.
“Probably one of our biggest challenges currently is how to acquire customers, not just in Australia but at a global level.”
“The next phase of growth is going to come from in Australia, but also overseas, and having a sales and marketing engine that allows us to acquire customers in those different markets.”
According to Orenstein, their priority is growing Locate2U which increased revenue by 8% to $0.66 million year on year in the Q2 of the 2025 financial year.
In 2024, the global domestic couriers market size was US$737.55 billion and is expected to grow to around US$832.65 billion in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 12.9%. By 2029, the market is expected to surge further to $1285.74 billion.
Zoom2U Technologies is moving into the crypto space with Bitcoin.
“We recently adopted a new Treasury policy, which allows us to acquire Bitcoin on the balance sheet,” Orenstein says.
“Instead of holding excess cash in the bank, we would hold it in Bitcoin.”
