"Currently, for a consumer or small business to send packages the following needs to happen: buy packing materials, pack the order, drive to shipping carrier, wait in line, and pay."

Not really. You do need packing materials.. but Endicia, Stamps.com, and even the USPS website will let you print postage. And you can request a free pickup through the usps website.

That's your real competition...

Co-founder of Shyp here.

Absolutely! However USPS only does pickups from 10-2 M-S. You need to be there or leave the package outside.

We will be soon adding support for UPS, Fedex, Ontrac and a bunch of other regional shipping company. Ship through Shyp and we handle everything.

Maybe in SF.. I'm in Denver, and I've had USPS pickups as late as 6:30pm. Downside was always you couldn't be completely sure at what time they would show up.

I've also heard some UPS Stores will pickup, package, and ship packages for you.. but it's up to the store (they're independently owned).. don't know how widespread that is.

I really don't have anything else to add... It's an interesting idea.. How compelling it is depends on the price I would think.

Agreed. Not only is USPS pickup free (as well as others), but depending on the method of shipping (USPS Priority, UPS, FedEx), the packing material could also be free.

The question now begs whether the benefits of their service warrants the extra cost?

We hope so! This is only v1 of our service. We will be adding UPS, Fedex and OnTrac support shortly. We will find the fastest or cheapest option with all supporting carriers on the fly.

Size of the box is also a very important factor. Using the free USPS boxes, it can be double or even triple the cost of a tight fitting box. Size does matters ;) We currently have 20 different sized boxes in our warehouse.

We are trying to offer an amazing service but still remain competitive to current pricing.

Saying that, there will be a ton of people who will do anything to save a dollar. I value my time very highly and assume a lot of other people do as well.

I'd have to disagree, simply using the smallest priority flat rate box possible was typically the best option for me.

What would be cool is if you provided the same kind of service that paypal does for shipping (print and prepare labels etc.) as an addon / plugin to shopify or other shopping cart systems.

Flat rate is rarely the best option unless your item is very heavy.

Check out Ordoro for printing labels. I think they integrate into shopify. Not our business.

Thanks for mentioning Ordoro (https://www.ordoro.com/). Yes, we have integration with Shopify and a few other carts. And we can batch print shipping labels for USPS, Fedex, UPS (more shipping integrations coming soon).

You can use EasyPost for that as well. Everything from rates, address verification, to buying the labels

The recent surge in physical shipping startups is interesting, but concerning as well. How can these new companies with limited funds afford to be sending drivers around to pickup packages and visit various locations? I think yesterday there was a company that would come pickup your mail from your mailbox. How is that possibly sustainable? And how can it scale to anywhere beyond maybe San Francisco? It just seems like a very lofty goal.

By being profitable on every transaction from day 1. I can't speak to other shipping startups but we make good margins after paying our delivery drivers.

If this works in SF it will most likely work in other major cities. Shipping stuff sucks everywhere.

Are you seeing more traction with in city deliver (so basically courier on demand for individuals) vs. people who want to eliminate the hassle of shipping out of the city?

It's been 90/10 shipping out of city.

What's with all the snail mail startups / projects in the last few days?

Did USPS open up some regulation or something, what's going on?

The rise of Fab.com thefancy.com and the other design websites that sell physical products that the owners ship have motivated startups to make fulfillment more efficient I think.

Fulfillment is the biggest pain in the ass of a business. You won't understand until you have to do it yourself. Even 10 packages can take an hour from beginning to end. So a few startups caught on and the rest were inspired to offer solutions as well.

I personally can't use Shyp because I have a sweet & easy setup already.

1) I have all my shipping supplies in the basement (boxes stacked to the ceiling).

2) I pack my orders (from DayOnePP.com) and buy postage using Stamps.com and print it out on sticky labels using my laser printer.

3) As long as 1 box is Priority Mail the USPS will pick up for free the next day. She's usually here at 3pm so I know when to be ready.

4) If not, there's always a post office within 5 minutes that has a 24/hour package drop off container. I just run through that before work and drop off all the boxes I've got.

It literally cannot get easier. I don't wait in line for anything and still get the cheapest prices on postage by using the online discounts that stamps.com(& PayPal Shipping & Pitney Bowes Smart Postage & Endicia offer) .

I asked because when I did a lot of shipping I had the same setup that you just mentioned. I'd just use the paypal hookup to print shipping labels for no additional cost.

Beyond actually packing and shipping the product I don't see what else there is left to solve.

awesome. Yes, this is the same kind of setup that lead me to start Shyp.

Looks like you have a great system but there is still room for improvement. Our new pricing is actually free pickup if you send 2+ packages.

In v2 or v3 we will have a super easy way to import orders directly into Shyp. Just export and choose your pickup time, thats it. We will come, separate all items (providing they have a UPC or serial) and verify.

We will ship each item the best way possible (speed or price). Our goal for high volume shippers is to actually save them money from current processes. We make our margins from the discount we have negotiated will all the providers. Everybody is happy at the end of the day.

I think more coincidence. EasyPost and TryPaper both started around the same time (Q3 2013). Nothing specific on the USPS side has happened.

That being said, one thing we've seen, is as companies have invested more and more in digital delivery, they've 'de-invested' in their physical print & mail production, so it makes a lot of off load it to a S(oftware)+S(ervices) model.

An idea's time has come?

I feel that doing an API this way begs for a middle man to make an app that normal people can actually use to do shipping in their business.

Why, if I want to ship things to people as my business, would I implement some software myself using this rather than buy an existing offering?

Am I missing something? Shipping and accepting credit cards are completely different, I know this API concept works for Stripe, but I fail to see how it works well for shipping.

Just as with a credit card API, you would integrate the ability to purchase & print postage within another application.

I work on an internal company application and it would be great if people could purchase & print postage from within the application.

Exactly -- the underlying APIs are painful to integrate, just like with Stripe.

Drop me a line at j at easypost dot com and I'd love to see how we can help

Another downside to your app is that it's on the iPhone platform, and I use Blackberry.

If you had a way for me to use a normal digital camera with my PC it would help get me on board.

There was some other new service here on HN recently that was called 'Sold' for selling stuff but it only worked on a certain platform I didn't have a device for, too- so I guess its not uncommon for startups to exclude whole market segments by device ownership.

I don't think it's a matter of them choosing to not work with Blackberry users, it's a matter of trade offs between time and resources. As a startup, you may only have time to build one great app for one platform and iOS was the chosen one.

To come to that decision, it was probably a factor of what you know and also some insight into the customer base. For example, maybe iOS users tend to be more likely to pay a premium for convenience or that in San Francisco, iOS penetration is higher than Android, etc etc.

If the product picks up traction, I will bet that their next move is to port to Android, then web, then maybe ... maybe windows phone and blackberry.

We have a solution! We are launching with both a web and iPhone app. Our initial users demanded a way to access from the web. Usually from their office or when they are putting together their ecommerce orders.

I'm still waiting on my invite. I saw some ads on FB advertising it and decided to try, but have been waiting since. I hate the Post Office and would love to this us.

Glad to hear! Right now we're slowly taking on beta users, but we'll be ramping up significantly over the next while. Looking forward to having you on board and getting your feedback!

This is an awesome idea. There is room for other shipping companies for sure. I hate using ups, always late over priced. Bring on A new company and lool forward to trying it out!

Question: How are you going to protect my shipments from being damaged if they're not packaged? Or do you package on my site?

We have custom bags that have heavy padding on the inside. We have designed them to transport fragile items. If multiple items are going in the same package, we bubble wrap each individually on site.

We take these bags with contents to our warehouse where we professional package all items for transport.

And if it is damaged on arrival, who is liable, you or the shipping company. Who do i have to deal with to get paid for my broken item?

We inspect every item at our warehouse. If it was damaged during transport to us, we cover 100%. If it is damaged from us to the destination, it will be up to the shipping company. We offer insurance through USPS.

We are looking to cover round trip but still seeing if that is economical for us.

the spelling of this name bothers me..