Ask HN: Anyone working with physical products and shipping logistics?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4439778

by j2bax • 14 years ago

10 8 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Full disclosure: I'm a hustler...

Just wondering if there are many people here working on an MVP that has physical products that will need to be shipped and how that has played into costs and feasibility of your business.

I'm currently working through a primarily B2B concept that will have a heavy shipping component and I'm wondering if there are any good resources for learning about how to minimize costs and time as I'm getting going. Also just interested to hear of others failures and successes when dealing with physical products.

staunch• 14 years ago

No answers yet so I'll give you my limited knowledge: Easy enough to setup a UPS account and start shipping. Moving big things around via freight is cheap. Amazon has a fulfillment service that will work in some scenarios. </experience>

j2bax3• 14 years ago

Thanks for the answer! I know I didn't give many details... And I suspect it may not get much easier than setting up a UPS account and just going for it. One slight concern that I have right now is shipping cost, as my product would in most cases require quick 1,2, or 3 day shipping. When comparing UPS to USPS the price difference is quite large with UPS costing quite a lot more. That said, I much prefer UPS based on their tracking capabilities. I think I may go with an option that customers can choose their carrier so that they know I'm not gauging on shipping.

ssylee• 14 years ago

Have you referred to the case studies in the 4 Hour Workweek or $100 Startup? Email me at stanley at sysil dot com if you still like to chat.

route3• 14 years ago

Launched my first physical product business last week: Hoppy Press [0].

I'm not shipping heavy components (opposite, actually: 12.5 ounces/~350g) so I don't have much advice for you on that front. I would like to share one lesson that I learned so far: the costs of shipping the actual shipping/packaging supplies was a bit more than I estimated. 40lbs of Kraft paper doesn't ship free.

Right now we are only offering USPS for shipping. We looked in to Amazon Fulfillment which is priced appropriately and would be good for a "hands off" approach. However, we like being able to include hand written notes and other gestures when we ship to our early customers.

Good luck!

[0] https://hoppypress.com

j2bax3• 14 years ago

Sorry about that, I shouldn't have used the word 'heavy' figuratively when speaking of shipping. The items I will ship are in most cases going to be sub 1lb after packaging. Comparing prices between USPS and UPS, 1 Day shipping from the Northwest to Midwest on a 1lb 8x6x3 package cost about $70.00 through UPS while its in the mid $30's through USPS. Just wish USPS had a better tracking system. But I suppose that's part of what you are paying for with UPS!

freshfey• 14 years ago

Check out Andrew's stuff on http://www.ecommercefuel.com/ - very valuable information here.

j2bax3• 14 years ago

Thank you! This is a great resource. Already reading through some of the articles and I plan on reading his book.

redfalcon6• 14 years ago

Check out places like http://www.shipwire.com/ and http://www.owd.com/

I've used both in some ecommerce experiments. Shipwire is more remote control, while OWD has real people you can talk to.

I prefer OWD for a couple hundred bucks a month and they do everything for you, and integrate with many shopping carts including Magento for completely hands off experience.

Ask HN: Anyone working with physical products and shipping logistics?

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