Very sorry to see them go and it was a beautiful product. However, this is no surprise at all. More surprising is that they were able to raise money for a business model that is fundamentally unsustainable (negative gross margins).
Outbox Is Shutting Down
41–50 of 97 posts
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly, USPS sees bulk mailers as their customer; American citizens (and our kitchen tables) are their product. It's like the old line: if you aren't paying for the service, you are the product. If curious, listen to a full story of it here: http://kut.org/post/austin-startup-says-you-ll-never-touch-s...
> Sadly, USPS sees bulk mailers as their customer... Not so sadly, doing so allows more reasonable rates for normal mail.
50 cents to send a piece of paper across the continent in just a couple of days is a bargain as far as I'm concerned. A dollar will even get your piece of paper across the world in just a few more days than that.
It's quite unbelievable that it works so well for such a cheap price.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sadly, USPS sees bulk mailers as their customer... Not so sadly, doing so allows more reasonable rates for normal mail.
50 cents to send a piece of paper across the continent in just a couple of days is a bargain as far as I'm concerned. A dollar will even get your piece of paper across the world in just a few more days than that. It's quite unbelievable that it works so well for such a cheap price.
I'm addressing my wedding invitations and skimming through Hacker News this afternoon. $25 to mail about two dozen envelopes (invite plus stamped rsvp), and half a dozen more with international addresses or additional weight that I'm taking to the post office in half an hour. And that's the bare minimum I could get away with sending paper invites to, everyone else is getting evites. Then there's a round of rehearsal dinner invites and thank you notes going out in the next couple months...
Not to mention I have two packages to return, and a bunch of my wedding accessories shipped USPS. All this week, before I consider any business-related needs (another 6-7 envelopes).
Not a terrible service at all. Could be better, fairly cheap for what it is, and I wish I could pay to not get junk mail, but...not too bad. Definitely better than Ontrac ;)
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#44This is sad to see. As the co-founder of http://www.paperkarma.com who's had to deal with some of the same issues (USPS regulations) I was keeping an eye out & pulling for them to succeed. We need further legislation to enable citizens better control over unsolicited mail. You guys built a great service & should be very proud! [edit: spelling]
I absolutely love PaperKarma. Keep up the good work!
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#45Seems really strange that they're shutting down. With a substantial customer list and some infrastructure that's hard to build, that's a business that could be sold for something -- perhaps not substantial exit money, but still. That said, they were charging less than what the service cost to provide, and -- judging from the comments here -- less than what their customers valued their services for. So perhaps they di…
"With a substantial customer list"
FTA: "we serviced a mere 2,000 customers in two relatively small markets"
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#46Why would they not pivot to being an Earth Class Mail competitor? At that point, they are not competing with or undermining, but rather contributing to the USPS.
I'm looking into Earth Class Mail and alternatives right now, and I think more modern/advanced competition could definitely do well (and leverage most of what Outbox has built).
Right now these services mostly target a very niche market of expats, travelers, etc, but I could definitely see an argument (just from a convenience perspective) of why this could be greatly expanded to a much more general audience.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#47I may be wrong, but my impression of Outbox has always been that they were designing an impressive solution to the wrong problem. Sorting my important mail from my junk mail is just not something I need help with. And the extraordinary wastefulness in my mind of paying a company to follow postmen around and take back the mail just delivered to my box seems so ecologically wrong that I couldn't support it on that grou…
This is definitely my view.
I'd honestly be happy just to see a service in the "use us as your mailing address" market with lower and less byzantine pricing than Earth Class Mail ($20/mo plus $5/mo for searchable PDFs, $1.50/piece to actually scan mail, $20 to deposit a check, $4.95/mo to shred mail, $0.30/mo/piece to store mail, etc.) and without the subtly deceitful tactics of VirtualPostMail (auto-applied promo codes that hide what the actual ongoing service limits are, big listed pricing that actually doubles after 3 months, etc).
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#48What a shame, I was really excited to try out their service. I never considered that USPS would ban them from providing their service, but I'm sure it has something to do with all the revenue that the USPS makes from spam mail.
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#49For those who have no idea what Outbox is, here is their original landing page: https://web.archive.org/web/20140116081115/https://www.outbo...
Re: Outbox Is Shutting Down
#50WHAT. This is really disappointing - first time in a while I've seen an "we're shutting down" announcement and been really, truly, genuinely disappointed by it. Physical mail is but one of many small parts of daily life that's increasingly feeling like an anachronism. The fact that we have to regularly physically go to our mailboxes, open them, receive physical paper communication, and then shred/dispose/keep it all…
Totally agree with this. Their business never made much sense in charging only $5 to "undo" what USPS does, but it worked great and is really useful when travelling. They should have tested a $19.99 price point before shutting down. I'm not sure i would have kept paying it for too long, but worth a shot.