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ShotPut (YC S15) helps fulfill product orders at a price that works for startups
- jimhi 11y agoHey there, it's James one of founders of Shotput here. Feel free to ask any questions about product fulfillment or going through y Combinator!
- dasickis 11y agoThis is Praful another co-founder of Shotput. Happy to answer any questions regarding tech or operations of our company and the fulfillment industry as a whole.
- xur17 11y agoAmazon offers FBA, which allows you to store your inventory in their warehouses, and ship products to customers via an api. How sets you apart from this? I'm guessing simpler user interface (Amazon's leaves a lot to be desired)?
- dasickis 11y agoAmazon also has a very arcane fee structure. Our fees are guaranteed to be the final price you see on the page. We've developed our pricing model so we have confidence we can manage your account without any issues. Additionally, you have more control of the process with us than Amazon.
- 55555 11y agoFBA is literally 2-3x industry standard pricing and is used almost entirely in order to increase the value proposition to buyers from/in the Amazon markerplaces exclusively. Pretty much no one sells through other channels and ships from FBA. Many sellers maintain a non-amazon warehouse. Having said that, I am guessing this startup is not attempting to compete on pricing.
- dasickis 11y agoWe do our best to be price competitive which is part of our pricing model. We never try to win on a price war but we're better in terms of pricing compared to both FBA & Shipwire.
- jimhi 11y agoYou hit it on the nose. People rarely decide between us and Amazon, usually it is between some random fulfillment centers their friends heard of and us. We have been pretty competitive on price so far, but mostly our benefit is we give total pricling upfront. Seemingly cheaper warehouses will give a low rate, but what is the true cost of using them? Are you hiring people or paying for mistakes they make?
- w1ntermute 11y agoIs anyone else concerned about all these startups catering to other startups? When the VC bubble bursts, the majority of them are going to go up in smoke.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoThe shovel-sellers only make money as long as the gold rush lasts.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dasickis 11y agoShovels & Levis still seem to be doing well ;)
- vinceguidry 11y agoThe whole point of a gold rush is that the big players haven't moved in yet, so there's still room for a single operator to get rich.
- dasickis 11y agoWe do want to clarify, we can work with businesses ranging from a few hundred orders/ month all the way up to 100,000's of orders. The way our network is set up, we can easily scale up or down the fulfillment needs of our customers. We work with many young businesses today because they need help finding their first warehouse, but we also work with more advanced businesses too.
- danieltillett 11y agoI am actually less concerned about VC money as it is a relatively small amount of money in the scheme of things, than I am about all the private equity money going into unicorns. The VCs will rock and roll with the funding environment, but the private equity market can go poof in an instant. If (when) it does the fallout will be vey nasty.
- Skrypt 11y agoLove the ShotPut crew. Some of the hardest working founders I've met. Admittedly we were damn pretty terrible on the shipping and fulfillment side of our business early on and they've been a huge help getting everything figured out for us. You definitely want to work with these guys.
- dasickis 11y agoWorking with Pakible is phenomenal we've recommended all our customers who want custom boxes to use their service! And we already handle their fulfillment.
- jkestner 11y agoHow do your customers handle inserts in your boxes? Seems that many products need some really custom insert to keep from rattling around.
- dasickis 11y agoGenerally we call inserts: marketing messages companies put in each shipment. There's another material called dunnage i.e. fill that is placed such as air packs, bubble wrap, paper, cardboard, mushroom (yes a product made from mushrooms!), etc. are used to keep the product tight. Another method is to use a smaller box which cuts down on both shipping costs as well as is a more secure way of securing products.
- MichaelCrawford 11y agoI know all about fulfillment as I was once in direct mail. Drop a line to our Direct Mail broker, Jim Johnson. davej@nuthouse.com or frances@cherman.com would know how to reach him. I am contemplating an eCommerce / Direct Mail business that will require fulfillment if it works out. That is I can drop list tests then fulfill them myself, but once I have an offer that works well, while I would still fulfill myself at the beginning, because I would already have tested I would already know I need fulfillment. The eCommerce site will come first but mostly to prevent a competitor from eating my lunch. The real marketing will be direct mail. Over time the direct mail will drive the website. I expect I would do radio ads as well. However I am uncertain that I will actually pursue this. I have approached two potential co-founders, they both think its a great idea but they don't want to give up their present work. I don't really require a full-time co-founder, I just don't want to go this alone. It's nice to have someone else to talk to in my place of work. I am dead certain this idea is huge, but were I to tell you then I would have to kill you. My mail is mdcrawford@gmail.com, http://www.warplife.com/mdc/ http://www.warplife.com/mdc/ I will reply to your eMail with my phone number but for the most part eMail works best for me. Thanks!
- jimhi 11y agoGreat to hear your thoughts, we made this company so people like you can focus on the market and product development and keep doing awesome stuff like this!
- nitrogen 11y agoIt looks like someone went on a flagging rampage on MichaelCrawford's comments on a recent AWS story, killing the parent comment as well. Weird.
- snomad 11y agoDo you handle fulfillment to Canada as well? Or US only? How about Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands?
- jimhi 11y agoYes, we can ship to those countries. Our fulfillment centers are all over the US and coming to Canada soon! But again, they can ship internationally.
- robzyb 11y agoThis reminds me of Dave Jones, an electronics engineer that runs the EEVBlog on YouTube. He created a little product, a small electronic tester, and sold them on KS/IGG. I remember a whole bunch of tweets and youtube videos about how much of a PITA the fulfilment was. I remember that he had some particular problems with international shipping too. ShotPut's website doesn't explicitly say that they cover international shipping, but they do, right?
- gregpilling 11y agoOk, I just tried to use your website. I have no idea what you are going to charge me to ship the orders. I put in one pallet, 960 pieces at 12 per case, 80 cases. 3 pounds each, ship as one, no special work needed. I got a price for move in easily, but then what?
- jimhi 11y agoHey Greg, the third step page is where we tell you the "move-out" or basically shipping and handling pricing. Why don't you give a message at james@theshotput.com though and I can give you a quote. You took the time to sign up on our site, the least I can do is take the time and answer all your questions.
- gregpilling 11y agoOk, will send
- frankdenbow 11y agoCool to see other companies in the fulfillment space! How do you differ from a company like Shipwire?
- dasickis 11y agoShipwire is a fantastic company, however, their prices have been historically high and their customer support has lacked recently. Though their international warehouses are a huge boost to small companies that need that capability. Our biggest differentiator is that we give you an upfront invoice and once you pay you'll never see a penny increase. Even your shipping is upfront (we're working on fixing it now as we speak).
- frankdenbow 11y agoAwesome, best of luck beating the big guys. Theres lots of room to innovate here. Small suggestion: an easy pricing calculator would definitely help on the site before capturing email
- dasickis 11y agoWe had one before but the types of products varied so wildly the ultimate cost was different. Currently we capture all that data and give our final price which uses our calculator. Though we'll discuss this issue and if it keeps coming up we'll act on it.
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- thedogeye 11y agoWhere is the scale in the business? How does it get better when it's 1,000x bigger?
- jimhi 11y agoWe are able to use our growing volume even now to lower the costs all around (freight, fulfillment, shipping). At 1000x growth, we could push those prices much lower. This is huge for start-ups. Since we only deal with fulfillment once it enters the country, we have people we would love to pass to your service too. It would be beneficial for both of us to talk and set something up soon.