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Comment by ebg13 | Hacker News Reader

Can someone with perspective on this explain to me how a percent commission model makes any kind of sense vs evaluating actual labor effort for a courier service with fewer guarantees? Delivering 100 pounds of potatoes is _way_ more difficult than delivering a tiny diamond ring.

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Probably just because it's much much simpler. How do you objectively compare the delivery difficulty of 100 lbs of potatoes vs a diamond ring? Should the delivery cost of 100 lbs of diamond rings be the same as 100 lbs of potatoes? What about 100, 1-lb boxes vs 1, 100 lb box? Size also makes a difference. You could charge per item, based on weight, like postal shipments. But then you also need to have accurate weights and dimensions. And transporting two boxes to the same address isn't twice as difficult as shipping one box. These aren't insurmountable problems, but as long as most people aren't complaining, there's little pressure to change.

edit: changed shipping to delivery, to avoid confusion.

> You could charge per item, based on weight, like postal shipments.

I would say not exactly based on weight, but similar to that: total dimensions&weight converted to dollars + miles converted to dollars + hours converted to dollars.

> What about 100, 1-lb boxes vs 1, 100 lb box?

Nit: Very few services will allow you to send a 100 lb box. Anything over like 40 lbs is a hazard per OSHA and requires special treatment.

Anyway, besides that, delivering lots of small boxes isn't harder than delivering one giant box if the fulfillment side is doing its job.

> But then you also need to have accurate weights and dimensions.

Everything you buy from Target already has these.

This is the reason/intention. Potatoes...even worse are jugs of water (low price high weight and bulk). It is a little less clear cut and for sure we're trying to make it easy as possible to reason about the change when picking up a shop.

Full Disclosure: I work for Target/Shipt and my opinions are my own.

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