With a Virtual Closet, Frequent Travelers Avoid Packing and Baggage Hassles
TEMPE, AZ – April 30, 2015 – Frequent business travelers often spend more time laundering clothes, packing bags and lugging suitcases through airport security than they spend on the airplane. DUFL aims to change that with its premium, luxury travel service, a personal valet that simplifies business travel by cleaning, storing and delivering business attire to a user’s specified destination.
The first service of its kind on this scale, DUFL is a world-class inventory and logistics management system built for global delivery with the capacity to track millions of items and shipments per day. DUFL is dead simple to use. Travelers just download the free app to create a user account and request a Welcome Kit, which contains a large DUFL suitcase that the customer can fill with his or her business wardrobe. The bag is then delivered to DUFL’s secure warehouse, where its contents are inventoried, photographed, cleaned and then stored until the next trip is scheduled. Photographs of the inventoried items are then visible to the user within the DUFL app, giving them full visibility into their DUFL virtual closet.
When customers are gearing up for a business trip, they can pack virtually within the app by selecting the clothing items they want to include from their DUFL closet, entering a destination and arrival date and DUFL will deliver their professionally packed bag to their specified destination. When it’s time to go home customers simply schedule a pickup and the bag will be delivered back to the DUFL warehouse for processing and storage.
“I do a lot of business travel and have spent many weekends making sure my clothes were cleaned, packed and ready for my Monday morning trip,” says Bill Rinehart, a serial tech entrepreneur and chairman, CEO and founder of DUFL. “Time is a precious commodity for business travelers, and DUFL gives them that 25th hour in the day with a virtual valet service that changes everything – automating and simplifying the traditional travel process for our users.”
Rinehart was inspired to create DUFL when he realized that while the massive adoption of logistics-oriented smartphone apps have dramatically increased the productivity and convenience of other services, travel hassles associated with luggage have remained unchanged for decades. Resolving to find a solution, Rinehart worked with entrepreneur, founder and DUFL CTO AJ McGowan, a proven inventor who holds more than 20 patents and has pioneered technologies that transformed industries. McGowan and team built a sophisticated logistics software layer that handles all aspects of the DUFL service with maximum efficiency. He manages DUFL’s infrastructure and leads product and engineering initiatives, developing the underlying technology that makes DUFL unique.
Simplification of domestic business travel is the first application of DUFL’s ground-breaking technology, but Rinehart and McGowan envision global expansion and the development of other applications of the service in the very near future. Initial launch will be iOS only, available in the App Store, quickly followed by support for Android and desktop.
Find out more at www.dufl.com.
About DUFL
DUFL is a premium, luxury travel service – a personal valet that simplifies business travel by shipping, cleaning and storing business attire. DUFL stores users’ clothing in a personal DUFL closet and allows them to virtually pack by selecting their clothing items from within the app. A professionally packed bag will be delivered to the specified destination, and upon trip completion, users will simply schedule a pick up, and their bag will be returned to the DUFL warehouse for processing and storage. Created by the founding members of Limelight Networks and Unicorn Media, DUFL is a world-class inventory and logistics management system built for global delivery with the capacity to track millions of items and shipments per day – changing the way the world travels. DUFL has offices in Tempe, San Francisco and Tokyo. Learn more at www.dufl.com.
