From fisherman to business owner: The story of a KaberX rider partner

Before the sun rises over the Philippine city of Cagayan de Oro, Dandy Loquero is already on his motorcycle, on the way to work.

“It’s busy in the mornings,” he says. “I wake up at 4:00 am so I can reach the hub by 5:00 am.”

Loquero is a rider partner for KaberX, a program launched by digital logistics company QuadX. Rider partners like him execute the pick-up and delivery jobs for QuadX’s customers by booking orders online.

Dandy Loquero, a rider partner for KaberX, a program launched by digital logistics company QuadX / Photo credit: QuadX

Life as a KaberX rider partner is hardly easy. Though Loquero isn’t made to work eight-hour shifts, like most people in gig-based jobs, the onus is on him to set his schedule and salary. Relying on the job as the only source of income can also mean working long hours with back-to-back deliveries.

But Loquero says he doesn’t mind. Compared to his previous job, being a rider partner is a massive upgrade.

Life at sea

In 2016, Loquero left his wife and three daughters behind in Cagayan de Oro to work in a fish exporting business in Taiwan. There, most of his time was spent on a medium-sized boat with other fishermen, catching tuna in the middle of the Philippine Sea.

“It was cold at sea,” Loquero recalls. “We would be out there every day with no rest.”

Every day, Loquero and his colleagues would set off at 7:00 am and only return to the shore at 4:00 am the following day. They were only given two meals each on their expeditions, and if a storm hit, they were forced into overtime.

It was cold at sea. We would be out there every day with no rest.

“When there was a storm, we couldn’t go back,” says Loquero. “The storms at sea were very powerful – the waves would be bigger than our boat.”

On top of that, the long hours at sea didn’t always result in a huge catch. Oftentimes, the men sailed back to land with barely enough to break even, let alone profit.

“One day, we only caught 20 fish,” Loquero shares. “We were always short.”

Going back home

In 2017, after spending 10 months in Taiwan, Loquero decided to go back home.

“I was alone. It was hard being away from my family,” he says. “And I was afraid I might die there.”

However, life back in the homeland wasn’t smooth sailing. Loquero found himself jumping from job to job, and he couldn’t find a stable source of income. That was when a neighbor introduced him to KaberX, where he could browse and accept courier jobs online. Despite not understanding what it meant to “work online,” Loquero decided to try it out.

Looking back, he says it’s “the best decision” he has ever made. The flexible working hours means he can choose to spend more quality time with his family when he needs to.

Additionally, Loquero shares that he can manage upwards of 500 deliveries on a good week and earn much more than he did in Taiwan. With his earnings from KaberX, Loquero was able to send his eldest daughter to a prestigious college, and even set up his own pig farm and a number of sari-sari stores (small neighborhood stores).

“It’s fun to deliver,” he adds. “It feels good to see customers happy when they receive their orders. It makes me smile.”

Empowering the community

The incentive-based KaberX model was launched in March 2018 as a way for QuadX to better engage the rider community and improve the customer experience for pick-up and delivery services.

Additionally, the company sought to positively impact the lives of Filipinos like Loquero by empowering them to become their own bosses, says QuadX director of operations Pat Jacinto.

“We really want to bring this experience to every nook and cranny of the country,” she shares.

On top of giving riders the autonomy to set their own working hours, QuadX also holds programs within individual hubs, where the sense of community they’ve established among the riders has proven to be an effective method of increasing their productivity and morale, Jacinto says.

“The word KaberX comes from the Filipino slang for kabarkada (a group of close friends). We build on this sense of friendship among the riders so that we can uphold the same values with riders from anywhere in the country in terms of quality of service and efficiency,” she explains.

Riders from the KaberX West Team during a basketball tournament organized by QuadX in Binondo / Photo credit: QuadX

“We continuously engage and build the communities through training programs for customer care, rider safety, and financial planning, and we celebrate riders’ successes in-hubs and in-app via rider leaderboards and KaberX stories shared to the entire community,” Jacinto adds. “To date this program has reached more than 1,000 riders, and like Loquero and his family, we hope it helps in building a brighter future for their families.”

Moving forward, QuadX looks to make KaberX available to other companies, in the hopes to “own the last mile” industry in the Philippines.

“What we really want is to be ‘product-agnostic,’” says Jacinto. “Someday, if another courier company needs riders, they can use KaberX riders.”

As the Philippines’ first customer-centric digital logistics company, QuadX is dedicated to helping Filipino entrepreneurs by providing simple and seamless commerce solutions.

Visit QuadX’s website to learn more about integrating digital logistics and payment processes into your ecommerce business.

If you’re interested in applying for the KaberX rider partner program, find out how on the KaberX Facebook page.