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Startup Aims to Give Everyone the Mighty Shipping Power of Amazon

160 points by gozmike 12y ago

npinguy 12y ago
Sounds like it fills a need effectively for the Disposable Income San Francisco Dweller. But "everyone" has got to be misleading, right? No way this is cost-effective for someone whose shipping margins are thin like an eBay seller. And there is no way to scale this across the country without essentially needing a warehouse full of packers, at which point you are basically in Amazon territory competing with them at their own game. I guess this can be successful as long as the company stays small.
- schoen 12y ago
  They might also capitalize on the "ugh factor" ("ugh, I have to pack this and make a shipping label"), especially for occasional or one-time eBay sellers rather than professionals.
- kevingibbon 12y ago
  not true (disposable income SF dwellers). Using our service will be cheaper than doing it yourself. As we create custom boxes (reduces weight and size) and choose the best carrier for each shipment we are able to offer a very convenient service for a cheaper price that you could get yourself. We will need to have a warehouse in every major city we launch in. It is a barrier but I can tell you we have the very best team to launch each city cheaply and at a ridiculous pace. We are launching NYC in oct.
hayksaakian 12y ago
If you need amazon like shipping, you can do fulfillment by amazon where you pay them to keep your products in their warehouse, and then they ship as directed. Obviously competition is good, but I wonder what they offer beyond not being amazon ---- After reading the article, it seems like the main unique offering is that they actually Pack your item, and take them from your home. Seems like the article glosses over this aspect, focusing more on how they compare to amazon or other startups.
- tomelders 12y ago
  On purely ideological grounds, I'd prefer to use this service (or something similar) just to do my part to stop the impending and unassailable Amazon hegemony.
- mpatzer 12y ago
  Do you still have to ship the item to Amazon with Fulfillment by Amazon?
  - vitamen 12y ago
    Yeah, that's what makes it different from just being a third party merchant on Amazon.
  - kevingibbon 12y ago
    No. Our service will pickup from your location at the point you need to ship.
- 727374 12y ago
  Did you read the whole article? The value proposition is more that the company will send a courier to your home and take an unwrapped item to its warehouse to wrap then ship. Fulfillment by amazon requires you to do the wrapping and shipping (to Amazon). With that said, they only charge a $5 fee for this service, which seems unsustainable.
  - avalaunch 12y ago
    They also get a discount on shipping which they do not pass on to the consumer. As they scale that difference will become larger and larger. I think that's where they expect to get the bulk of their revenue.
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    > With that said, they only charge a $5 fee for this service, which seems unsustainable. Yeah. I don't understand how that even pays the carrier (+fuel). Let alone the packaging and the actual shipping to the end user.
justinsb 12y ago
Interesting - I've always used USPS Flat-Rate Priority Mail: 2 or 3 day service; free boxes; no need to weigh; free pickup at my door. About $5 for small boxes; $10 for medium boxes; $15 for larger boxes. I still hope that the USPS would build an easier website to use - it's good, but it's not "Uber-easy". Can someone that uses Shyp comment - is Shyp the service I've been waiting for?
- kevingibbon 12y ago
  USPS flat rate is actually only the cheapest USPS option if you are shipping > 11 lbs. I guarantee you that if you use us it will be cheaper (even including our $5 pickup fee) than for you to do it yourself with all free packaging materials. Then factor what your time is worth. UPS ground and fedex ground are actually the best/cheapest option if you are shipping anything > 3 lbs. We choose the cheapest carrier automatically and create a custom box for each item. btw CEO of Shyp here.
  - spydertennis 12y ago
    whats the cheapest if you are shipping 1 lb domestically and need a tracking number?
    - kevingibbon 12y ago
      USPS priority. If it is <= 13 oz you could use first class. Their price point can't be beat for < 3 lb items domestically.
      - ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
        UPS Mail Innovations beats out USPS First Class for us in price and accountability. Because they push through UPS's system all the way to regional facilities, we're seeing less package claims. UPS SurePost also can be competitive if you put them through the wringer. From 1-9lbs we're saving between $0.08 to over $22.00 across the Contiguous US. USPS almost retained our business from 10-15lbs, but we got UPS to match them.
balor123 12y ago
Sounds really, really great to me. I've got some cell phones, an old Kindle reader, and some control4 stuff at home that's been there for like a year, mostly b/c it's too much of a pain to pack and sell. eBay provided an app recently that makes it easier to sell but doesn't solve the shipping problem. Also, it's iOS only and not available in my area I think. I could take these items to Staples to pack and ship but then I get hosed, such that it's cheaper to throw it away than sell it. I mean shipping a printer is like $100 from Staples but Amazon includes it free in the price of a $90 printer somehow. So I'd say there's huge potential in this business. I'd actually prefer to see it under Amazon's roof but fine separate as well as long as they can scale quickly and without a lot of hiccups.
hoopism 12y ago
... Where Everyone < Population of San Francisco Fixed.
brianbreslin 12y ago
What cities are they in right now? I would think it would be smart to do plugins for magento/woocommerce/presta/etc and let that trigger the orders. However not sure how this would work for moderate volume stuff that can't support the $5 eating into the margins. This seems best suited for periodic sales off of ebay, not full time e-commerce plays.
- kevingibbon 12y ago
  San Francisco and launching in NY early Oct. Signup for NY access on our site now. We do both. The benefit to not using a 3PL (Amazon logistics or other services) is that we don't ever store your items. We ship from your location on-demand. So our costs are less which we pass on. We actually see a lot of omni-channel retailers love using our service. They utilize their in-store inventory to ship out as purchases come in.
kayhi 12y ago
"Shyp charges customers the cheapest retail price they would pay to ship an item, which still ends up being more than what the company pays. Shyp keeps the difference." This could be very helpful for those that do not have a business account with UPS or FedEx, but if you regularly ship packages then it is cheaper to do it yourself at some point. Amazon pricing: http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.htm?ld=NSGoogleAS http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.htm... Using their Action Toy example costs $6.54 which would retail $8-12 depending on the distance sent from FedEx/UPS The spot that Amazon really excels is standard verse two-day shipping ($4.75 compared to $7.75 for a non-media item). It would be interesting if Shyp or someone could graph the optimum depending on your volume (a bit complicated to due to sizes, weight and frequency, but doable).
- kevingibbon 12y ago
  absolutely. The stuff we already do behind the scenes is quite incredible. Not ready to share anything yet but stay tuned. btw CEO of shyp here.
georgemcbay 12y ago
The article doesn't really touch upon speed of delivery (to customer) and consistency, which (speaking as a consumer) is Amazon's true magic sauce. The reason I buy almost everything I buy online via Amazon is that if it is sold by or fulfilled by Amazon and I order it I will get it exactly when I specify 99% of the time (generally two days from order, unless I really want to pay the extra ~$4 for one day on top of my Prime membership). Every other shipping/buying concern is completely secondary for me -- sellers who sell on Amazon but don't fulfill via Amazon offer very little benefit (ease of one-click shopping is nothing compared to the nearly guaranteed consistent delivery, at least for me). I actually wish more companies than Amazon (and Newegg) would handle this sort of consistency better because I'd love to spread my dollars around more, but those are the only two that have earned my trust in this area. Every other online seller I've used might as well have "???" listed for shipping times because that's what actually happens.
- kevingibbon 12y ago
  This is exactly the service we are offering to everyone (SF only now, NY in oct) who doesn't use Amazon fulfillment. The things we are doing behind the scenes to aim for cheapest/fastest service is unbelievable. We will continue to innovate here so business/consumers can focus on what they do best. Shipping is what we do best.
- super-serial 12y ago
  Amazon's speed of delivery has gotten worse and worse over the years. 5 years ago I would get anything I order within 3-4 days. Now it's two weeks when using their free shipping. I'm not paying $100 extra for Prime just to get things shipped in a reasonable time-frame... because those other services that are bundled with Prime are worthless to me. Since Amazon has been so bad, now I use websites that focus on niches (one website for computer-related items, one for supplements etc.). All these websites offer free shipping much faster than Amazon.
wmf 12y ago
Maybe it's just me, but I found the custom box cutting machine to be the coolest part of this article.
- plumeria 12y ago
  Yeah, it was interesting.
- DhruvSax 12y ago
  yeah - I'm surprised that they didn't go into more depth about that. Apparently the machine is made by Packsize: http://www.packsize.com/products/em-7 http://www.packsize.com/products/em-7
plumeria 12y ago
Kevin - How much do you ship to Central and South America?
pessimizer 12y ago
This is just barely an internet startup - it's actually a real, physical business doing physical things aided by technology. I wish them luck and hope they make it to Chicago. Treat your couriers well and I'll never have to hate you:)
dsugarman 12y ago
I can't imagine this would be feasible for any online retailer. The only exception I can think of is if you just raised a bunch of money and want to figure out fulfillment later, but you will most definitely have UPS/FedEx trucks docking at your warehouse with any real volume. The solution seems great for someone wanting to sell random items they no longer want to own on eBay but the benefits of the easy to use app are also negatives for a business who are shipping the same product over and over. No business should settle for retail pricing, unless in the future you can get better volume rates with Shyp than you would on your volume. The implied market and comparison to Amazon seems off in this article.
- praxulus 12y ago
  I didn't see this as being a business service at all, it seems completely aimed at a consumer and maybe hobbyist market. The comparison to Amazon is just about bringing the convenience, not the scale. I've had to ship a few things here and there, and it's always been annoying. Even when Seagate sent me all the necessary packaging when I needed to RMA a hard drive, I still ended up having to drive over to the UPS location to drop it off. Finding an appropriately sized box and getting a hold of just enough packaging to fill the gaps is not something I want to waste time on when shipping something, especially if the item itself is <$100 to begin with. Whether regular people will start shipping enough stuff to make this company profitable is another matter, but I would certainly love to have this option around next time I need to ship something.
  - larrys 12y ago
    "I didn't see this as being a business service at all" They could handle returns and repair logistics for companies once the network is built. Cases where a bad item needs to be picked up and there is either no packing material or it's the type that needs to be repacked. Or it's a 27" Imac and the owner is a person that can't pack it properly and get it back to Apple (I've seen where Apple will dispatch a tech to a home to fix a problem in a Mac Pro so they send out a tech (to a home). Here they could issue a pickup (non business, non critical of course). Less costly. Pickup and repair at the "depot". Or say I have a rack server that I want retrieved and shipped somewhere and I don't want to trust that the colo people derack and ship properly. (This would tech specialized staff for sure but that's my point. There are many places you can go with this). There are already logistics companies that do similar things (contracting with businesses) for delivery of home appliances, exercise equipment etc. This is in a sense the reverse of that. Not to mention that a company like this is a total acquisition target by a major shipper once the network is built.
jianelli 12y ago
Taking a ~$3 million seed round to buy customers and expensive toys must be fun. But its not a business. Can you keep this up without investor cash to burn through?
- kevingibbon 12y ago
  yes
jianelli 12y ago
There is a cool company in New York called Shipster, I think in some ways they are better than Shyp. Check them out. This looks like the new Uber vs. Lyft rivalry to me
- gozmike 12y ago
  What makes them seem better than Shyp? On the surface, Shipster seems much younger and looks like a copycat player. Nothing against copying and competing really, but would like to understand the basis of your claims on the ways they are better.
  - jianelli 12y ago
    I travel between san francisco and new york all the time and tried both services. Honestly, I liked that shipster gave me a price upfront for all shipping speeds and that I could track my shipments more intuitively from the app. That was way way better. Shyp is obviously in the press all the time, but that doesnt mean its a better service.
    - kevingibbon 12y ago
      You can select 'shipping options' and get a quote in there. We are continuously A/B testing every interaction and hiding the price in a sub-menu helped across the board.
prostoalex 12y ago
Their CEO was on "This Week in Startups", there's a bunch of interesting details around their model, if you don't mind the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mr3YnULZs8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mr3YnULZs8
smokey_the_bear 12y ago
I often look for baby items on eBay. They use stuff for such a short period that used is a great way to go, but with shipping costs it's rarely any cheaper than Amazon for new items. Hopefully this, or a convenient way to exchange local used items solves that.
larrys 12y ago
"The coolest—and also biggest—tech in the place is a machine that takes raw cardboard and cuts custom-sized boxes that eliminate all the empty space that Amazon so often fills with those plastic air-filled bags. And smaller boxes can mean lower shipping prices." Lower shipping costs? Apparently not for Amazon. Impossible to believe that they haven't correctly factored in box cost, size and filler material in terms of the rates that they pay vs. everyone else. Plus packing multiple items (for one shipment) is different than packing a single item as well.
waterside81 12y ago
There's a lot of innovation to be done in the shipping industry. Here in Canada, shipping is very expensive. I've seen a few companies sprout up now that take your packages, drive down to the US and ship from within the border. This allows Canadians to ship packages as if they're US domestic packages. I can ship something to Hawaii for less than it would cost to ship from Toronto to Vancouver. It's insane.
damian2000 12y ago
Its kind of an inverted version of Kosmo.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com Kozmo promised to delivery anything anywhere within an hour whereas Shyp promises to pick up anything within an hour. Lets hope it doesn't go the same way as Kosmo.
joshdotsmith 12y ago
I've been waiting for Shyp to launch an API. There are plenty of apps out there that can use an experience like the one Shyp provides.
ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
The value Shyp really provides is taking the guess work out of rate and service shopping. I'm heavily involved in the logistics of my company's shipping and dimensional weights, speed of delivery, and volume all play a huge part in keeping your shipping costs down. My company was leaving a lot of money on the table until we got shipping costs under control. I could very easily see startups making catastrophic decisions in this area of fulfillment that another company could help with.
BFay 12y ago
I'm wondering how scalable this service will be outside of cities. I just moved into a new apartment and I'm shopping around for furniture - exploring craigslist postings, etc. I drive a sedan and while I'm willing to drive half an hour or so to pick up furniture, I can't fit very much in my car. Renting a truck is sort of impractical for moving just one item. If I could use Shyp like a taxi service, waiting twenty minutes or so for a courier to come and pick up a large item, and then having them deliver it directly to my place for a reasonable fee, well, that would be pretty amazing. I'm not sure if that is feasible, or even part of the vision of the company, but I want it now!

160 points by gozmike 12y ago

Sounds like it fills a need effectively for the Disposable Income San Francisco Dweller. But "everyone" has got to be misleading, right? No way this is cost-effective for someone whose shipping margins are thin like an eBay seller. And there is no way to scale this across the country without essentially needing a warehouse full of packers, at which point you are basically in Amazon territory competing with them at their own game. I guess this can be successful as long as the company stays small.

schoen 12y ago
They might also capitalize on the "ugh factor" ("ugh, I have to pack this and make a shipping label"), especially for occasional or one-time eBay sellers rather than professionals.
kevingibbon 12y ago
not true (disposable income SF dwellers). Using our service will be cheaper than doing it yourself. As we create custom boxes (reduces weight and size) and choose the best carrier for each shipment we are able to offer a very convenient service for a cheaper price that you could get yourself. We will need to have a warehouse in every major city we launch in. It is a barrier but I can tell you we have the very best team to launch each city cheaply and at a ridiculous pace. We are launching NYC in oct.

hayksaakian 12y ago

If you need amazon like shipping, you can do fulfillment by amazon where you pay them to keep your products in their warehouse, and then they ship as directed. Obviously competition is good, but I wonder what they offer beyond not being amazon ---- After reading the article, it seems like the main unique offering is that they actually Pack your item, and take them from your home. Seems like the article glosses over this aspect, focusing more on how they compare to amazon or other startups.

tomelders 12y ago
On purely ideological grounds, I'd prefer to use this service (or something similar) just to do my part to stop the impending and unassailable Amazon hegemony.
mpatzer 12y ago
Do you still have to ship the item to Amazon with Fulfillment by Amazon?
- vitamen 12y ago
  Yeah, that's what makes it different from just being a third party merchant on Amazon.
- kevingibbon 12y ago
  No. Our service will pickup from your location at the point you need to ship.
727374 12y ago
Did you read the whole article? The value proposition is more that the company will send a courier to your home and take an unwrapped item to its warehouse to wrap then ship. Fulfillment by amazon requires you to do the wrapping and shipping (to Amazon). With that said, they only charge a $5 fee for this service, which seems unsustainable.
- avalaunch 12y ago
  They also get a discount on shipping which they do not pass on to the consumer. As they scale that difference will become larger and larger. I think that's where they expect to get the bulk of their revenue.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  > With that said, they only charge a $5 fee for this service, which seems unsustainable. Yeah. I don't understand how that even pays the carrier (+fuel). Let alone the packaging and the actual shipping to the end user.

justinsb 12y ago

Interesting - I've always used USPS Flat-Rate Priority Mail: 2 or 3 day service; free boxes; no need to weigh; free pickup at my door. About $5 for small boxes; $10 for medium boxes; $15 for larger boxes. I still hope that the USPS would build an easier website to use - it's good, but it's not "Uber-easy". Can someone that uses Shyp comment - is Shyp the service I've been waiting for?

kevingibbon 12y ago
USPS flat rate is actually only the cheapest USPS option if you are shipping > 11 lbs. I guarantee you that if you use us it will be cheaper (even including our $5 pickup fee) than for you to do it yourself with all free packaging materials. Then factor what your time is worth. UPS ground and fedex ground are actually the best/cheapest option if you are shipping anything > 3 lbs. We choose the cheapest carrier automatically and create a custom box for each item. btw CEO of Shyp here.
- spydertennis 12y ago
  whats the cheapest if you are shipping 1 lb domestically and need a tracking number?
  - kevingibbon 12y ago
    USPS priority. If it is <= 13 oz you could use first class. Their price point can't be beat for < 3 lb items domestically.
    - ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
      UPS Mail Innovations beats out USPS First Class for us in price and accountability. Because they push through UPS's system all the way to regional facilities, we're seeing less package claims. UPS SurePost also can be competitive if you put them through the wringer. From 1-9lbs we're saving between $0.08 to over $22.00 across the Contiguous US. USPS almost retained our business from 10-15lbs, but we got UPS to match them.

balor123 12y ago

Sounds really, really great to me. I've got some cell phones, an old Kindle reader, and some control4 stuff at home that's been there for like a year, mostly b/c it's too much of a pain to pack and sell. eBay provided an app recently that makes it easier to sell but doesn't solve the shipping problem. Also, it's iOS only and not available in my area I think. I could take these items to Staples to pack and ship but then I get hosed, such that it's cheaper to throw it away than sell it. I mean shipping a printer is like $100 from Staples but Amazon includes it free in the price of a $90 printer somehow. So I'd say there's huge potential in this business. I'd actually prefer to see it under Amazon's roof but fine separate as well as long as they can scale quickly and without a lot of hiccups.

hoopism 12y ago

... Where Everyone < Population of San Francisco Fixed.

brianbreslin 12y ago

What cities are they in right now? I would think it would be smart to do plugins for magento/woocommerce/presta/etc and let that trigger the orders. However not sure how this would work for moderate volume stuff that can't support the $5 eating into the margins. This seems best suited for periodic sales off of ebay, not full time e-commerce plays.

kevingibbon 12y ago
San Francisco and launching in NY early Oct. Signup for NY access on our site now. We do both. The benefit to not using a 3PL (Amazon logistics or other services) is that we don't ever store your items. We ship from your location on-demand. So our costs are less which we pass on. We actually see a lot of omni-channel retailers love using our service. They utilize their in-store inventory to ship out as purchases come in.

kayhi 12y ago

"Shyp charges customers the cheapest retail price they would pay to ship an item, which still ends up being more than what the company pays. Shyp keeps the difference." This could be very helpful for those that do not have a business account with UPS or FedEx, but if you regularly ship packages then it is cheaper to do it yourself at some point. Amazon pricing: http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.htm?ld=NSGoogleAS http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.htm... Using their Action Toy example costs $6.54 which would retail $8-12 depending on the distance sent from FedEx/UPS The spot that Amazon really excels is standard verse two-day shipping ($4.75 compared to $7.75 for a non-media item). It would be interesting if Shyp or someone could graph the optimum depending on your volume (a bit complicated to due to sizes, weight and frequency, but doable).

kevingibbon 12y ago
absolutely. The stuff we already do behind the scenes is quite incredible. Not ready to share anything yet but stay tuned. btw CEO of shyp here.

georgemcbay 12y ago

The article doesn't really touch upon speed of delivery (to customer) and consistency, which (speaking as a consumer) is Amazon's true magic sauce. The reason I buy almost everything I buy online via Amazon is that if it is sold by or fulfilled by Amazon and I order it I will get it exactly when I specify 99% of the time (generally two days from order, unless I really want to pay the extra ~$4 for one day on top of my Prime membership). Every other shipping/buying concern is completely secondary for me -- sellers who sell on Amazon but don't fulfill via Amazon offer very little benefit (ease of one-click shopping is nothing compared to the nearly guaranteed consistent delivery, at least for me). I actually wish more companies than Amazon (and Newegg) would handle this sort of consistency better because I'd love to spread my dollars around more, but those are the only two that have earned my trust in this area. Every other online seller I've used might as well have "???" listed for shipping times because that's what actually happens.

kevingibbon 12y ago
This is exactly the service we are offering to everyone (SF only now, NY in oct) who doesn't use Amazon fulfillment. The things we are doing behind the scenes to aim for cheapest/fastest service is unbelievable. We will continue to innovate here so business/consumers can focus on what they do best. Shipping is what we do best.
super-serial 12y ago
Amazon's speed of delivery has gotten worse and worse over the years. 5 years ago I would get anything I order within 3-4 days. Now it's two weeks when using their free shipping. I'm not paying $100 extra for Prime just to get things shipped in a reasonable time-frame... because those other services that are bundled with Prime are worthless to me. Since Amazon has been so bad, now I use websites that focus on niches (one website for computer-related items, one for supplements etc.). All these websites offer free shipping much faster than Amazon.

wmf 12y ago

Maybe it's just me, but I found the custom box cutting machine to be the coolest part of this article.

plumeria 12y ago
Yeah, it was interesting.
DhruvSax 12y ago
yeah - I'm surprised that they didn't go into more depth about that. Apparently the machine is made by Packsize: http://www.packsize.com/products/em-7 http://www.packsize.com/products/em-7

plumeria 12y ago

Kevin - How much do you ship to Central and South America?

pessimizer 12y ago

This is just barely an internet startup - it's actually a real, physical business doing physical things aided by technology. I wish them luck and hope they make it to Chicago. Treat your couriers well and I'll never have to hate you:)

dsugarman 12y ago

I can't imagine this would be feasible for any online retailer. The only exception I can think of is if you just raised a bunch of money and want to figure out fulfillment later, but you will most definitely have UPS/FedEx trucks docking at your warehouse with any real volume. The solution seems great for someone wanting to sell random items they no longer want to own on eBay but the benefits of the easy to use app are also negatives for a business who are shipping the same product over and over. No business should settle for retail pricing, unless in the future you can get better volume rates with Shyp than you would on your volume. The implied market and comparison to Amazon seems off in this article.

praxulus 12y ago
I didn't see this as being a business service at all, it seems completely aimed at a consumer and maybe hobbyist market. The comparison to Amazon is just about bringing the convenience, not the scale. I've had to ship a few things here and there, and it's always been annoying. Even when Seagate sent me all the necessary packaging when I needed to RMA a hard drive, I still ended up having to drive over to the UPS location to drop it off. Finding an appropriately sized box and getting a hold of just enough packaging to fill the gaps is not something I want to waste time on when shipping something, especially if the item itself is <$100 to begin with. Whether regular people will start shipping enough stuff to make this company profitable is another matter, but I would certainly love to have this option around next time I need to ship something.
- larrys 12y ago
  "I didn't see this as being a business service at all" They could handle returns and repair logistics for companies once the network is built. Cases where a bad item needs to be picked up and there is either no packing material or it's the type that needs to be repacked. Or it's a 27" Imac and the owner is a person that can't pack it properly and get it back to Apple (I've seen where Apple will dispatch a tech to a home to fix a problem in a Mac Pro so they send out a tech (to a home). Here they could issue a pickup (non business, non critical of course). Less costly. Pickup and repair at the "depot". Or say I have a rack server that I want retrieved and shipped somewhere and I don't want to trust that the colo people derack and ship properly. (This would tech specialized staff for sure but that's my point. There are many places you can go with this). There are already logistics companies that do similar things (contracting with businesses) for delivery of home appliances, exercise equipment etc. This is in a sense the reverse of that. Not to mention that a company like this is a total acquisition target by a major shipper once the network is built.

jianelli 12y ago

Taking a ~$3 million seed round to buy customers and expensive toys must be fun. But its not a business. Can you keep this up without investor cash to burn through?

kevingibbon 12y ago
yes

jianelli 12y ago

There is a cool company in New York called Shipster, I think in some ways they are better than Shyp. Check them out. This looks like the new Uber vs. Lyft rivalry to me

gozmike 12y ago
What makes them seem better than Shyp? On the surface, Shipster seems much younger and looks like a copycat player. Nothing against copying and competing really, but would like to understand the basis of your claims on the ways they are better.
- jianelli 12y ago
  I travel between san francisco and new york all the time and tried both services. Honestly, I liked that shipster gave me a price upfront for all shipping speeds and that I could track my shipments more intuitively from the app. That was way way better. Shyp is obviously in the press all the time, but that doesnt mean its a better service.
  - kevingibbon 12y ago
    You can select 'shipping options' and get a quote in there. We are continuously A/B testing every interaction and hiding the price in a sub-menu helped across the board.

prostoalex 12y ago

Their CEO was on "This Week in Startups", there's a bunch of interesting details around their model, if you don't mind the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mr3YnULZs8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mr3YnULZs8

smokey_the_bear 12y ago

I often look for baby items on eBay. They use stuff for such a short period that used is a great way to go, but with shipping costs it's rarely any cheaper than Amazon for new items. Hopefully this, or a convenient way to exchange local used items solves that.

larrys 12y ago

"The coolest—and also biggest—tech in the place is a machine that takes raw cardboard and cuts custom-sized boxes that eliminate all the empty space that Amazon so often fills with those plastic air-filled bags. And smaller boxes can mean lower shipping prices." Lower shipping costs? Apparently not for Amazon. Impossible to believe that they haven't correctly factored in box cost, size and filler material in terms of the rates that they pay vs. everyone else. Plus packing multiple items (for one shipment) is different than packing a single item as well.

waterside81 12y ago

There's a lot of innovation to be done in the shipping industry. Here in Canada, shipping is very expensive. I've seen a few companies sprout up now that take your packages, drive down to the US and ship from within the border. This allows Canadians to ship packages as if they're US domestic packages. I can ship something to Hawaii for less than it would cost to ship from Toronto to Vancouver. It's insane.

damian2000 12y ago

Its kind of an inverted version of Kosmo.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com Kozmo promised to delivery anything anywhere within an hour whereas Shyp promises to pick up anything within an hour. Lets hope it doesn't go the same way as Kosmo.

joshdotsmith 12y ago

I've been waiting for Shyp to launch an API. There are plenty of apps out there that can use an experience like the one Shyp provides.

ChikkaChiChi 12y ago

The value Shyp really provides is taking the guess work out of rate and service shopping. I'm heavily involved in the logistics of my company's shipping and dimensional weights, speed of delivery, and volume all play a huge part in keeping your shipping costs down. My company was leaving a lot of money on the table until we got shipping costs under control. I could very easily see startups making catastrophic decisions in this area of fulfillment that another company could help with.

BFay 12y ago

I'm wondering how scalable this service will be outside of cities. I just moved into a new apartment and I'm shopping around for furniture - exploring craigslist postings, etc. I drive a sedan and while I'm willing to drive half an hour or so to pick up furniture, I can't fit very much in my car. Renting a truck is sort of impractical for moving just one item. If I could use Shyp like a taxi service, waiting twenty minutes or so for a courier to come and pick up a large item, and then having them deliver it directly to my place for a reasonable fee, well, that would be pretty amazing. I'm not sure if that is feasible, or even part of the vision of the company, but I want it now!