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Postal Arbitrage

walzr.com

161–170 of 293 posts

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could have made another $5 per 10 pizzas after order #1 by just delivering the pizza to themselves and sending the same boxes back out in the next delivery, and so on.

An actual DoorDash driver had to do the delivery though. So you risk being reported and also, if they take awhile, pizza gets cold. But they also could have just raised prices on everything but the cheap one DoorDash was using for pricing.

No, he means recycling the boxes not the pizza inside the box.

The pizza itself can be literally given away (although if not on the premises, then presumably a box would be required.)

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#163
It's not arbitrage until you can make money by selling something that costs you less than what you bought it for. What it is is bundled product (item + shipping) being priced lower than just one of the elements in the bundle (shipping) therefore making a case that one might as well always buy the bundle.

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate USPS, and will not be doing anything to benefit them until they offer a way to limit my deliveries to once a month, and opt out of anything that has "or current resident" At the very least they should charge more for bulk mail, not give out discounts.

In Canada, you can place a red dot (or write no unsolicited mail) on your mailbox and they will withhold delivering anything not directly addressed to you. I was shocked when I moved to SF and found out there was no way to opt out of unaddressed mail (or "current resident").

In Finland AFAICT there's no bulk postal rate. Instead, paper spam is delivered thru mail slots by private services that hit all the buildings in the neighborhood and drop collections of paper spam. So, many people post a note on their door opting out from this stuff. (Ei mainoksia = No ads.) It must be saving absolutely huge amounts of paper.

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#166
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/freight-transportation > While nearly three-quarters of the world’s cargo is carried by ocean-going ships, road vehicles like trucks and vans make up the majority, 65%, of freight’s emissions. Most ships burn fossil fuels and emit carbon, but they carry large amounts of freight at the same time, making them the most efficient way to move cargo. Road freight, however, can emit more t…

Not disagreeing but it’s amazing a ship plowing water out of the way is so much more efficient. Perhaps trains beat road transport efficiency to a similar degree.

classic volume grows faster than surface area.

also, fuel is a huge cost (maybe even the main cost), and drag has a >linear relationship with speed- so the ships will slow down based on fuel prices.

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#168
As an ex-pat, I'm really surprised by the pervasiveness of Amazon in the US. I guess if you wanted to quickly convert the US economy to market socialism, the first step might be to nationalize Amazon, fix the treatment of its workers, fix the IPR-related crap, electrify all of its transport, and then base the country's consumer economy (of non-perishables, for simplicity) around the resultant post-Amazonian logistics spiderweb. "Now with delivery drones on land, sea, and air!"

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#169

How much did they pay to have Prime? Have to add that in.

Exactly. It'd probably take a while before you actually cost amazon more than what you'd already paid them in shipping plus the cost of all the While screwing over amazon is noble enough, the end result of people doing this would only result in higher fees for prime and fewer items being eligible for "free" shipping. At the same time, you'd be depriving a very valuable public service of the few cents they ask to offset the cost of message delivery to anywhere in the nation. I'm sure they'd be happy to deliver something besides spam too.

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#170
There are some of us going to great lengths to reduce the amount of plastic we consume, the crap we buy and then throw out, distances travelled on our behalf.

And then there are these people. Sending a pregnancy test to their grandma. What a hoot!

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