12 ms·
I wish I could ship everything in my attic to Amazon and they would photograph, catalog and store the stuff privately. Then for some kind of low annual fee I c
by 8ig8 13y ago
I wish I could ship everything in my attic to Amazon and they would photograph, catalog and store the stuff privately.
Then for some kind of low annual fee I could ship things in and out as needed.
This service would include pre-scheduled shipments of holiday decoration.
The problem I have is that I forget what is in my attic. On a few occasions I've purchased something only to find out I already own one. It was just buried in the attic and I forgot about it. If I try to buy something on Amazon, this service would remind me that I already own it and ship it to me.
Besides the attic stuff, I also have small random, rarely-used things that I know I'll need in the future, but don't know where to store them so I'll find them in the future.
Someone once suggested that I just keep a running list of items near the attic door. I tried it, but didn't keep up with it.
It would be nice to set some kind of expiration of my stuff as well. If I don't request an item from Amazon Attic in 18 months, it can be sold. Maybe that's a way to offset my fees.
Another idea... This could have a social aspect (what doesn't these days!?). I could give select friends access to my personal Amazon Attic catalog and they can borrow something, again for a low shipping fee. Amazon will send them a friendly email to return it and then charge them eventually if they don't.
(YC, here I come.)
- wmeredith 13y agoIf you're buying stuff you already own, you may want to reassess some priorities.
- randallsquared 13y agoIt's stuff that 8ig8 doesn't know is already on hand. Keeping certain track of it takes more time than the repurchase is worth, for occasional use. A related situation is why lots of people have several identical pairs of scissors, can openers, and other things that they don't use every day: eventually, as you buy more of them, the time it takes to find one costs less than buying a new one. But 8ig8 has this problem with things that are hidden in the attic; just figuring out whether it is in there at all is painful.
- gknoy 13y agoIronically, this is exacerbated right after you move, too: I have things which I know I own (diagonal cutters, magnetized screwdrivers, etc), but which I _cannot_ find anywhere. It's in some box somewhere in my garage, but not in my "tools" chest, so it's more time effective to buy a replacement.
- atwebb 13y agoHow many pens do you have?
- StavrosK 13y agoBuy fewer things!
- rattray 13y agoI think that exists. May have even been a YC company; definitely a fairly new startup. Can't recall its name though; something with "box" in it perhaps. Anyone have a better memory than mysef?
- icelancer 13y agoNo, that service that you're thinking of is nothing like it. I know because I want the exact same service 8ig8 is talking about and was hopeful that it was, but it's not even close. (I also can't remember the name.)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- klipt 13y agoThis one? "Why 3 MIT Grads Want to Send You an Empty Box" http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/one-click-selling/ http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/one-click-selling/ Definitely not what 8ig8 described, but the first thing that I associate with "box".
- tvladeck 13y agoBoxbee and MakeSpace are both new companies going for something like that.
- mahyarm 13y agoI use wire storage racks and cheap $10 transparent plastic drawers to store and organize my stuff, not counting clothing where i use dressers and closets and just plain plastic boxes for bedding . It's fairly affordable and effective. everything being transparent that isn't clothing is fairly essential for finding things.
- toffer 13y agoSounds like you want MakeSpace: https://www.makespace.com/ https://www.makespace.com/. (Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6453732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6453732)
- wikwocket 13y agoThere are services where you can drop off eligible items, and they will research them, photograph them, post them to eBay, and ship them. This wouldn't handle the temporary-storage model, but they do handle everything related to selling. They are nice in that you can just drop stuff off, never see it again, and sometimes get a check in th email. But the downside is that after fees and percentages, you see about 50-60% of what the item sells for. So it's good for boxes of old stuff that have some value, but that you know you'll never break down and sell individually.
- pervycreeper 13y agoThis sounds like a potentially very useful service. The one downside is that objects with a value below a certain threshold will not be worth their time, and would likely just be moved to a landfill. Out of personal interest (as a potential user): can you name some of these businesses?
- wikwocket 13y agoThe one I know of, in the Chicagoland area, is "iSold It on eBay." I believe it is a franchise with a bunch of locations. They have certain categories of things they will try to sell, and things they won't bother with. If it sells, they can mail you a check. If not, you can pick it up, or they can donate it to charity. They may accept things to sell by mail, but then of course you're taking a further hit on shipping.
- 13y ago
- Pxtl 13y agoI suspect the total cost of your warehouse space would exceed what you're willing to pay for this service. I mean, self-storage companies charge a lot, and they don't even catalogue your crap for you. Plus shipping costs, labour, etc. It's completely impractical, sadly. I want it too.
- marincounty 13y agoI used to manage a storgae, actually two. They were all huge rip offs. I only met a handful of people who used them correctly; move in and move out within a month. 99.9% of people move their crap(sorry, but unless it silver, or gold bullion) in and leave it their forever. The owners know this and exploit the psychological phenomenon. Plus, they actually love late fees. There was a difference between what men and women horder. If you are close to homeless, and still have a car a small storage unit does made sense though. Get the smallest unit available--closet size--and use it to store clothes and food, and personal effects. Make sure to keep your automobile--preferably a inconspicuous van--like a VW newer bus, or anything that dosen't stand out as looking like you sleep in it. One very ingenious young an converted a small moving truck into an apartment. He parked in the commercial areas and lived that way for years. He never told anyone though. People can be really petty--and beyond mean. God bless anyone who is contemplating using a Storage Facility.
- ebiester 13y ago1. I was living abroad for a year. It cost significantly less to store everything than re-buy it. 2. In the bay area, people often have a small living area. Storage is significantly cheaper than a larger apartment. Can you learn to live minimally? Sure. Is it always the preferable choice? If I hadn't found the place I did, I may have rented a 5x5 semi-permanently.
- thaumasiotes 13y agoI've definitely considered living out of a truck. How did the guy shower?
- 13y ago
- thesash 13y agoSounds similar to BoxBee[1], although they don't photograph & inventory, they just catalog & store individual boxes and make them available on demand. https://boxbee.com/ https://boxbee.com/
- lcc 13y agoBoxit does something similar: http://www.boxitnow.ca/ http://www.boxitnow.ca/
- alex_c 13y agoSo it sounds like the problem isn't actually storage, but cataloguing and retrieval? This might make more sense as an in-house service somehow, rather than something that involves shipping and the associated costs.
- tonyedgecombe 13y agoIt sounds like the problem is owning too much stuff.
- rspeer 13y agoWell, sure, that's the problem, but breaking it down into separate steps that need to be solved should be part of the solution. I own too much stuff. I would love for there to be a solution more effective and less wasteful than simply throwing it out. I appreciate this post because it's suggesting at least part of a solution... ...although I don't think it would work for me because it requires even more stuff. A working printer (which will inevitably turn into a non-working printer). Label paper. Packing tape. Many boxes of appropriate sizes. I assume this guy already ships stuff from his house for other reasons, or else all that stuff would be clutter too.
- stretchwithme 13y agoSomeday we'll have robots that can keep track of it all and how much its currently worth online. Imagine being able to find things with a simple query. And if most people did this and shared their data, you might be able to find something a hundred feet away much more quickly.
- adolph 13y agoIf you haven't seen it, a link I think worthy of a listen, George Carlin Talks About "Stuff": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac
- StephanKletzl 13y agoRegarding your idea about the „personal Amazon attic“ which you show to your friends, I wanted to let you know that we are currently working on something very similar. ShelfFlip (www.shelfFlip.com) makes it very easy to create a list of all your products (by analyzing your received order confirmations or your amazon purchase history) and then lets you put selected products on your personal sales page (your “shelf” - which you can then send to your friends). I am very curious what you think about it.
- ThomPete 13y agoThat is kind of what Lauritz.com does.
- kiwidrew 13y agoThere are some guys in Singapore that are working on something similar: www.vaultdragon.com
- nicky40hands 13y agoThis has potential, have you ever seriously thought of the logistics?
- cko 13y ago> I also have small random, rarely-used things that I know I'll need in the future, but don't know where to store them so I'll find them in the future. As a guy who personally sleeps on the floor, owns one pair of pants, rents a family car and a family bedroom, and has no photographs or books, I'm genuinely curious - what are some of things that need to be stored?
- pawn 13y agoA jacket would be an example. Depending on where you live, it's something completely unnecessary in the summer and totally necessary in the winter. On the flip side, swimming trucks for the opposite seasons.
- lotsofcows 13y agoI've used storage for skis, kayaks and other outdoor kit before.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoSomething my daughter taught me which was really really cool was to take digital pictures of storage areas. Basically open up the drawer, make nearly everything visible, take a picture then add it to Evernote (or some git repo, or some well known folder). Then when you are wondering what you have/where it is you can scan through the pictures. It is remarkably effective.
- mathattack 13y agoSmart daughter!
- thomasfl 13y agoSimple, but clever idea. I keep telling my wife our house is for people to live in, not a warehouse for her books, memorabilia and kids toys. I'll try anything to keep our house livable.
- kalid 13y agoRandom startup idea, just for fun: have mechanical turk (or a game) to tag the items in the photo. Upload your photos: shed-shelf1.png shed-shelf2.png shed-main.png After a few hours (or days) they are tagged with hammer, wheelbarrow, drill, gas can, etc. Now you can grep for things in the real world :). (This is likely overkill, but I like the idea of photos taking advantage of our massively-parallel object-finding & recognition abilities. With a few textual tags, even at the entire-photo level, you could search dozens of rooms efficiently.)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- newman314 13y agoI have a whole bunch of car parts sitting around that I wish I had the time to properly photograph, sell and ship. I would totally be for splitting the costs if I can just get them out of my garage. This is a scenario where I know the parts are worth $$$ but I'm time constrained to get it sold. Plus car parts cost $$ to ship.