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FTA: "and other things to and from stores (eg, getting your broken iPhone to a Postmates-using repair shop)." Yeah, about that. We run repair shops, and were a

FTA: "and other things to and from stores (eg, getting your broken iPhone to a Postmates-using repair shop)." Yeah, about that. We run repair shops, and were approached by Favor (Postmates competitor) about doing this. We love Favor; they are local to us in Austin and we'd like to do more business with them. The problem was insurance. Our insurance refused to cover it as the phone wouldn't be in our possession. And (at least at the time) Favor's insurance also was not covering if a phone was lost or stolen during a "run." When it's a small food order (most of the food orders they run are around $20-$30, or even less), it's not the end of the world if something gets lost or stolen. It's a lot bigger deal if it's a $969 iPhone 7+. Even with a broken screen and iCloud locked, they're still (unfortunately) worth significant money on the black market. As far as I know, no delivery company has overcome this hurdle.

mahyarm 9y ago
Most traditional shipping companies do have shipping insurance.
xur17 9y ago
I've always wanted to to use Favor or Postmastes to deliver packages to UPS, but it never ends up being worth the risk. It's interesting to hear that insurance ends up being the issue. Presumably UPS and Fedex have insurance for this, I wonder if they'd ever partner, and use their insurance.
- trimbo 9y ago
  > I've always wanted to to use Favor or Postmastes to deliver packages to UPS Why? You can schedule pickups for Fedex and UPS for no fee, and have same-day pickup in some areas. http://www.fedex.com/us/fcl/pckgenvlp/pickup/ http://www.fedex.com/us/fcl/pckgenvlp/pickup/ https://wwwapps.ups.com/pickup/schedule?loc=en_US https://wwwapps.ups.com/pickup/schedule?loc=en_US
  - xur17 9y ago
    UPS and Fedex don't pickup on the weekends. In the past when I looked, you couldn't specify a time with very much granularity, but it looks like that is an option now, so I'll have to try it out.
- pbarnes_1 9y ago
  https://www.shyp.com/ https://www.shyp.com/
  - xur17 9y ago
    Unfortunately it doesn't work in my city, and requires you to buy the label from them as far as I can tell. I am shipping to Amazon FBA, so they provide the label (at a large discount).
sitepodmatt 9y ago
Yes unfortunately. People often forget this. A friend had his latest iPhone stolen by a prostitute one night walking home from a bar. He wasn't too concerned, and eventually his insurance paid out and he didnt care about being robbed as his thinking was it was locked and then disabled by an Apple store so 'she got nowt'. But I'd wager that it was sold immediately for parts for say $100 at a local independent repair store who probably made another $200 out of it for parts, I daren't tell him as the issue has pasted given his thinking.
- ericabiz 9y ago
  I am part of a group of independent repair shops (see http://repair.org http://repair.org ) and most of us are quite vocal about our policy of not buying iCloud-locked phones. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't make it easy to see whether a phone is iCloud locked. They used to have a convenient online tool for this, but took it down. So a lot of folks, repair shops or not, get suckered into buying one. From my perspective as someone who owns several stores, the majority of them get sold to people who don't know any better through platforms like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace. A lot of repair shop owners do lurk on, say, FB Marketplace and comment on posts where people are obviously trying to sell stolen goods, but there will unfortunately always be someone willing to buy something because they got "such a good deal." Typically repair shops aren't going to put used parts in a customer phone, so an iCloud locked phone isn't much use "for parts."
  - sitepodmatt 9y ago
    Can you explain why you wouldnt put working used parts in a customers phone (excluding time degrading parts like a battery I guess). I'm sure in Asia all little 1-2 people phone and laptop stores (which are very popular - in some cases whole shopping centres floors dedicated to such repeated stalls) do? If I need a new headphone jack in an out of warranty phone I guess a second hand part is probably much cheaper for everyone? Ignoring the stolen issue (and morality around stolen) for a second. Same reason independent mechanics will often source from a scrap yard where appropriate - say a cheap phone $150 (like my y6-ii) with one thing broken?
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
How is there a market for this? If my phone is broken, how will I even use the Postmates app?
- rconti 9y ago
  website
chadwittman 9y ago
We've solved this hurdle at Dolly, but our entire business is built around having solved this exact problem — so it's part of our core strategy.
twhb 9y ago
Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but can't they just act as their own insurance? Reimburse customers themselves? As I understand it, insurance costs more than expected payouts (or the insurance company wouldn't make money), and is purchased only to amortize cost spikes too large to handle. So it doesn't make sense when the spikes are small (on the company's scale) and semi-regular. Maybe the actual expected loss from theft is too high?
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Insurance pools you with other people so it could make sense to buy protection if you think you're getting a deal.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

mahyarm 9y ago

Most traditional shipping companies do have shipping insurance.

xur17 9y ago

I've always wanted to to use Favor or Postmastes to deliver packages to UPS, but it never ends up being worth the risk. It's interesting to hear that insurance ends up being the issue. Presumably UPS and Fedex have insurance for this, I wonder if they'd ever partner, and use their insurance.

trimbo 9y ago
> I've always wanted to to use Favor or Postmastes to deliver packages to UPS Why? You can schedule pickups for Fedex and UPS for no fee, and have same-day pickup in some areas. http://www.fedex.com/us/fcl/pckgenvlp/pickup/ http://www.fedex.com/us/fcl/pckgenvlp/pickup/ https://wwwapps.ups.com/pickup/schedule?loc=en_US https://wwwapps.ups.com/pickup/schedule?loc=en_US
- xur17 9y ago
  UPS and Fedex don't pickup on the weekends. In the past when I looked, you couldn't specify a time with very much granularity, but it looks like that is an option now, so I'll have to try it out.
pbarnes_1 9y ago
https://www.shyp.com/ https://www.shyp.com/
- xur17 9y ago
  Unfortunately it doesn't work in my city, and requires you to buy the label from them as far as I can tell. I am shipping to Amazon FBA, so they provide the label (at a large discount).

sitepodmatt 9y ago

Yes unfortunately. People often forget this. A friend had his latest iPhone stolen by a prostitute one night walking home from a bar. He wasn't too concerned, and eventually his insurance paid out and he didnt care about being robbed as his thinking was it was locked and then disabled by an Apple store so 'she got nowt'. But I'd wager that it was sold immediately for parts for say $100 at a local independent repair store who probably made another $200 out of it for parts, I daren't tell him as the issue has pasted given his thinking.

ericabiz 9y ago
I am part of a group of independent repair shops (see http://repair.org http://repair.org ) and most of us are quite vocal about our policy of not buying iCloud-locked phones. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't make it easy to see whether a phone is iCloud locked. They used to have a convenient online tool for this, but took it down. So a lot of folks, repair shops or not, get suckered into buying one. From my perspective as someone who owns several stores, the majority of them get sold to people who don't know any better through platforms like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace. A lot of repair shop owners do lurk on, say, FB Marketplace and comment on posts where people are obviously trying to sell stolen goods, but there will unfortunately always be someone willing to buy something because they got "such a good deal." Typically repair shops aren't going to put used parts in a customer phone, so an iCloud locked phone isn't much use "for parts."
- sitepodmatt 9y ago
  Can you explain why you wouldnt put working used parts in a customers phone (excluding time degrading parts like a battery I guess). I'm sure in Asia all little 1-2 people phone and laptop stores (which are very popular - in some cases whole shopping centres floors dedicated to such repeated stalls) do? If I need a new headphone jack in an out of warranty phone I guess a second hand part is probably much cheaper for everyone? Ignoring the stolen issue (and morality around stolen) for a second. Same reason independent mechanics will often source from a scrap yard where appropriate - say a cheap phone $150 (like my y6-ii) with one thing broken?

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago

How is there a market for this? If my phone is broken, how will I even use the Postmates app?

rconti 9y ago
website

chadwittman 9y ago

We've solved this hurdle at Dolly, but our entire business is built around having solved this exact problem — so it's part of our core strategy.

twhb 9y ago

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but can't they just act as their own insurance? Reimburse customers themselves? As I understand it, insurance costs more than expected payouts (or the insurance company wouldn't make money), and is purchased only to amortize cost spikes too large to handle. So it doesn't make sense when the spikes are small (on the company's scale) and semi-regular. Maybe the actual expected loss from theft is too high?

hkmurakami 9y ago
Insurance pools you with other people so it could make sense to buy protection if you think you're getting a deal.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]