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Comment by nartz | Hacker News Reader

I think their whole approach was off - why even have warehouses, custom packaging, etc? Why not charge what it actually costs to ship something, plus a little more?

All they need is a bunch of vans that drive around and have a bunch of boxes and tape, basically ubers. They show up, package my thing up, and take it to the closest fedex store - enough said.

No custom boxes needed. No warehousing.

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They made money through discounts on retail shipping as well as fees. Concentrating pick-ups to a small number of warehouses while doing the specific packaging and labeling and palletizing requirements of the shipper increases the discount.

If they just charged retail plus a little more the product would’ve been even more expensive.

Picking up things without the boxes allowed them to use bike messengers and/or foot messengers rather than vans, which is a lot more efficient in urban areas (no traffic issues, parking problems, etc.) They'd just put whatever you gave them into a bag and then into their messenger bag. Then they'd hand off to a truck located at a central location that served multiple messengers.

I used them a few times, it was pretty cool and if you didn't have the box for something could save a bunch of time. Unfortunately I think most consumers don't ship things often enough (aside from returns where you already have a box and a label) to be worthwhile serving this way. Small businesses were better but many of them already get discounted rates from UPS if they ship a lot.

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