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Are you kidding me? We have this for over 5 years in Germany... Normal service of Deutsche Post.
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/Program…
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.
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.
Are you kidding me? We have this for over 5 years in Germany... Normal service of Deutsche Post.
Maybe that's a business opportunity for USPS.
So they've taken $800K from someone who works at Amazon in order to take on Amazon? I think not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 als…
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.
Are you kidding me? We have this for over 5 years in Germany... Normal service of Deutsche Post.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 als…
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.