Swapbox Lands $800K To Take On Google’s BufferBox And Amazon’s Lockers | Hacker News Reader

Swapbox Lands $800K To Take On Google’s BufferBox And Amazon’s Lockers

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32 pointsdrakaal38 comments

Are you kidding me? We have this for over 5 years in Germany... Normal service of Deutsche Post.

So then why are you surprised? This isn't a normal thing in North America and seems like you are a fan of the service, so the funding is justified. Maybe it's an obvious concept but it's not developed here.

Normally technology is invented in Silicon Valley Start-Ups and then either copied or expanded to Germany. To see a slow developing company like the German post company (previously government owned) use a technology for years and then seeing people getting totally excited about the idea in the US years after is just a strange experience.

It's a normal service of the US Postal Service too, but they will only allow mail in the box; FedEx and UPS are not allowed to use them.

Maybe that's a business opportunity for USPS.

You're right, but it's not common in America, that's where we come in, with a few other tricks and tech up our sleeves...

I agree that there is a lot to improve upon the existing designs. Don't worry, my surprise was not meant as criticism on your project.

So how are you guys solving the Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA) problem?

Congress passed a law in 2001 regarding CMRAs and directed the USPS to establish regulations regarding them. What it boils down to is that in order to receive USPS mail on someone's behalf as a commercial entity, you've got to register with your local post office AND have all your customers do so as well.

http://www.rscentral.org/Programs/USPS-Retail-Programs/USPS-...

If you only accept UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc but no USPS you're in a legally grey area. Most reasonably adults would suggest that FedEx isn't "mail" the same way that what the USPS delivers IS mail. But I haven't seen any case law either way on this but I'm not a lawyer so it could be out there.

The reason this is a problem is that the purchaser (the SwapBox customer) doesn't always have control over how the items he/she purchases will be shipped. Think Amazon Marketplace or eBay; they often go "whatever's cheapest" and you don't get a choice since it's a $10 item with free shipping. When that happens the USPS can't legally deliver the items to the SwapBox and will return them to the shipper.

If SwapBox does go the route of registering with the local post office(s) as a CMRA it gets worse. According to the regs you have to register as a customer at a particular address. So if you want to get mail at SwapBox A you have to fill out paperwork and get it delivered to the post office for SwapBox A. Now if you want to get deliveries at SwapBox B, which is at a different physical address than A? You got it, another set of paperwork for the post office that delivers to SwapBox B.

This is not a trivial problem to solve. I know, I used to work at a mid-sized CMRA and there's no way around it, legally, without lobbying Congress to change the law. At least that I could come up with.

EDIT: Transcript from Congressional Hearing is here http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-106hhrg61646/pdf/CHRG-106h...

EDIT2: I don't want to discourage you guys, there may be a way around this. I suppose that might be some kind of competitive advantage so you might not disclose it publicly. If you didn't know about this already and you want I'd be happy to explain this whole thing in detail and/or give you some things I already looked into as ways to ease the pain. I'm not sure what the proper "get in touch in real life protocol" is here on HN.

Typically with these services they have a central location that they have you ship things to and then the service will go deliver it to the right box. This is how Bufferbox does it and I assume how these guys are as well.

That makes sense. It doesn't scale terribly well because as you get more than maybe an hour from the central location by car/truck you can't expand further.

It also doesn't solve the problem of needing to have the customer fill out the form which scares tons of them away. It's either got to be signed in front of one of the company's employees, or notarized. Neither of which makes it easy for a company to grow.

It also means that you're still fairly tied down. Yeah a metro area is much larger than a single zip code, but it's definitely not a nationwide rollout in any kind of reasonable timeframe.

It definitely seems pretty capital intensive as well with all the delivery vehicles and the actual boxes. As for signing - I don't think the delivery guys are as concerned just as long as someone accepts it. For instance in San Francisco roommates usually accept for each other without really needing to sign. I've also heard issues with amazon lockers being full most of the time so people will need to find a different spot and I'm curious if it will be the same for this. Overall I think there are still a good number of problems these guys will need to straighten out to be able to scale. I'd also be curious how much they are paying the stores with the actual boxes.

You're right that the delivery guys aren't too concerned so long as it's non-commercial. So a roommate or neighbor or the apartment front office or whatever is no problem. That's how you can get USPS packages at your work even if it's a huge building; the mail department at your work isn't a separate business that charges you for the accepting your mail. Once it's clear that it's a mail accepting for hire kind of business though the USPS guys will be sticklers about it.

Ultimately I expect that these businesses will get bought up by UPS or FedEx for the software, the already designed physical boxes and the small but existent network of facilities. Once that happens they will become a nationwide thing but only in areas where the drivers have to do lots of re-delivery. They will look at it as a cost reduction more than anything else. At least that's my take.

I love the idea of having packages delivered to a locked location near my home.

Being able to have expensive things delivered to some where safe that has 24 hour access is awesome. (No Mailboxes ETC isn't a bad idea but it costs money and gets junk mail)

I also like that I can have people send stuff without giving my address. (there are some creepy people on Etsy and Ebay)

Glad we could provide you with a way to do this drakaal. Feel free to ping us at support@swapbox.com with any ?s, concerns, feedback, etc!

Where do I signup :)

swapbox.com :)

bufferbox.com :D

No Chicago! :(

I'm a big fan of BufferBox, so I hope SwapBox brings even more to the table. I find it especially useful when ordering anything that ships via UPS/Fedex since they mostly try to deliver during the day and if you're not home to receive, it can be a big PITA. With BufferBox, they sign for it, then place it in the locker for you.

Try us out if you're in SF, for free, and let me know what you think :)

How do these services differ from the UPS store where I get mail delivered to and packages signed for?

They are generally accessible 24 hours a day. You don't have to be the person the package was sent to, just the person with the key code.

The UPS store I use is accessible 24 hours with a key and door code.

But you can't have your girlfriend sign for your package.

Odd, my brother picks up my packages for me since I have been out of state for a while.

My wife and my brother pickup my packages for me from my local UPS store where I have a mailbox. Don't even need a key; they both know the owner personally.

One thing that is different is that (with the exception of Amazon Lockers) they basically don't exist if you don't live in San Francisco.

BufferBox is in Toronto as well.

Our goal is to bring Swapboxes close to people who need them and add some really cool technology to the process. One advantage our users see is that they are notified immediately via email / text when the package arrives and can pick it up on their own time. They're also not tied into a monthly plan since we dynamically allocated space. No keys, no hassle. Some people have already figured out solutions that work for them, we just feel that there's still a lot of pain points that are unaccounted for! Hope that sheds some light for you :)

I could see this service being very useful to Silkroad buyers as it avoids giving a home address to drug dealers. If paid for anonymously, it would also make the buyer more difficult for law enforcement to track than someone who sends packages directly their residence.

Come to Australia - Australia Post Parcel Lockers need some competition!

We're on it!

Really? I'd love to have a chat to you - contact details are in my profile.

I've used Parcel Lockers twice so far, and got the fastest and most convenient delivery I've ever had, with 24hour access (you get a temp password for a temp locker - which also acts as a signature, for packages requiring that).

However, they charge a fee to non-Australia Post couriers (FedEx etc), and so it seems those couriers refuse to deliver to them... which might be shortsighted but could be an effective strategy to kill the competition in Australia, since they are far superior to FedEx (in my experience, so far - I've used FedEx many times, always frustrating).

So they've taken $800K from someone who works at Amazon in order to take on Amazon? I think not.

I wouldn't say we're "taking on" Amazon...

The title says that. But I guess that's TechCrunch editorializing, and not something you actually said. My apologies.

No worries jrockway. It's in the headline. I'm just clarifying how we see ourselves.

you can't move the burden of logistics costs to the e-commerce retailers, they put the burden right back on the consumer.

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