Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Postal Arbitrage

walzr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 293 posts

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#101

Post by School-Cotton »

SoftTalker wrote: post #71
kazinator wrote: post #62

Has this person tried it? Doesn't Amazon shipping have to go to the billing address on the credit card? Being able to purchase on a credit card and have it sent anywhere makes it that much easier to use stolen credit cards.

Pretty sure if you buy something as a "gift" (which is what allows the inclusion of a message) then you can send it to a different address. I rarely use Amazon and never have used it to send a gift so could be wrong.

You can send things to other addresses regardless of whether it's a gift or not.

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#102

Post by rationalist »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #33
bee_rider wrote: post #8

A cheaper option (if we’re going to do away with the restriction that the post card should be sent by the sender) would be for the recipient to hook their printer up to the network, and just send bits. It is better, actually, you can even scan a real hand written post card.

owning a printer is never the cheaper option.

I'm sorry the ink cartel hurt you. May I introduce you to the world of laser printers?

My color laser printer has definitely been cheaper than me driving to the store hundreds of times to print thousands of color prints.

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#104

Post by dec0dedab0de »

School-Cotton wrote: post #99
SoftTalker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately bulk mail is the only thing paying the bills. That and being a last mile delivery service for Amazon.

Which is a totally valid reason to hate USPS. The USPS is a government-run spam delivery service that there is no way to opt out of. Those of us who do banking and other administrative tasks online would be better off if the government shut it down completely, or better yet subsidized it slightly so it doesn't have to deliver spam to survive. But as it is, I don't see any good reason to have any more respect for USPS…

Yes, exactly. I wish the post office were subsidized and acted in the interests of the public. But it is not, and does not.

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#105

Post by [deleted] »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #57
MinimalAction wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love a napkin math calculation at this.

The distance the boat has to cover is 11800 kilometers, and the truck covers only 54 kilometers. Taking that average of 12 times more usage from the table of sibling comment means the ship is still 20x worse.

[deleted]

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#106

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

pruetj wrote: post #90

Funny seeing this. I've been working on a site to allow people to send a letter as cheaply and conveniently as possible. I actually think letters (physical) are a great way to make an impression, often times much more so than an email. Had never considered sending an actual object lol. At current scale (which is very small), the cheapest I can get it down to without losing money is $1.55 per letter (postage, paper, p…

What if you also start providing the 0.25$ lime feature as well (by making use of the amazon prime itself as well?) xD?

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#108

Post by notherhack »

The lowest I found is two clip-on CAT5e cable termination jacks for $0.80 + 0.08 tax. Available in a rainbow of colors and shipped free to Seattle by Sunday if you order in the next 10 hours. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08T63ST97

Or 3.5oz filet mignon flavor dog food for $0.84+tax with FREE two day delivery. https://www.amazon.com//dp/B07VBFLCKT

Beat that!

Re: Postal Arbitrage

#110

Post by corentin88 »

mystifyingpoi wrote: post #64

In Poland, OLX (basically equivalent eBay) commonly has promotional campaigns, where you can buy something from a select category with 1 PLN shipping to box machine (around $0.30). So people figured out, that you can abuse it to send anything to anyone in the country. Just create a fake listing for 1 PLN, let the receiver "buy" it (there is some extra service fee, but like $1) and there you go - probably the cheapest…

Same thing in France with Vinted
Post reply on HN