

Lob (YC S13) Debuts a Cloud Printing and Shipping Service for Developers - harryzhang
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/25/y-combinator-backed-lob-debuts-a-cloud-printing-shipping-service-for-developers/

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jmduke
I don't have much domain knowledge, but the pricing seems rather high:

[https://www.lob.com/pricing](https://www.lob.com/pricing)

$.45 for a black and white piece of paper is on the high end, especially
considering they're acting as a middleman.

~~~
harryzhang
Keep in mind this includes an 4 sheets of B&W, the envelope, packaging, and
labor costs associated with stuffing it into an letter, addressing it, and
then mailing it. So $0.45 for one sheet is not exactly correct.

~~~
atwebb
Isn't the stuffing automated? Heck I've seen some awesome machinery that takes
bulk mail (assorted sizes), OCRs the info, opens it, retrieves the letter
(check in this case)and then scans that for processing (putting aside
illegible / odd cases).

~~~
ValG
Yes but what is the cost of those machines? And what is the cost of the
service that uses those machines?

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gfodor
I use AmazingMail's API and they have been great:

[http://www.amazingmail.com/direct-mail-
automation](http://www.amazingmail.com/direct-mail-automation)

Pricing is much cheaper. Main downside is there is a rather sizable one-time
setup fee. But for printing, you are going to need to work with support to
ensure things are working well, so this support is what you are paying for.

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soggypenny
Feedback on the website: There is currently no Terms of Service. There is a
Privacy Policy posted, but the TOS is not there. Your PP says, "This Privacy
Policy is governed by our Terms of Service", so I would post one immediately.

~~~
meomix
That's a little scary to be honest.

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ValG
I wouldn't necessarily call is scary, they're a start-up and early stage at
that, probably just an oversight. Plus, they mention in the TechCrunch article
that right now it's literally just the 2 of them, I'm sure they'll get one up
soon!

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twog
Does anyone know where I could find a list of API's as a product?

examples that I can think of:

Stripe

Lob

EligibleAPI

Factual

~~~
veverkap
I like [http://www.programmableweb.com](http://www.programmableweb.com)

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callmeed
This is a great idea. I have a tight relationship with the printer I use at
[http://www.cheergram.com](http://www.cheergram.com) and we are thinking of
doing something similar.

I know several pro print labs and Lob's prices are a bit high. On the other
hand, small run printing can be a pain. Most printers I know have minimum
orders on photo prints and press products like cards have to be done in groups
of 25 or 100. Also, most printers will ship to their client for free but
charge a fee to drop-ship.

All-in-all, the pricing isn't terrible but you have to find some kind of
specialty/niche to make it work. I don't think you could do much with just a
basic "print this thing" service built on top of this.

Here's one lab I know of that actually publishes their pricing:
[http://www.nationsphotolab.com/prints.aspx](http://www.nationsphotolab.com/prints.aspx)

~~~
ukemma
Interesting. Doesn't printagram do printing and packaging in-house? I would
think you'd need to in order to greatly increase margin.

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anderspetersson
So this is similar to [http://theprintful.com](http://theprintful.com) ?

I can't make sense of the pricing page, is the cost for shipping included in
the "packaging"-price?

Do you ship worldwide?

How long does it take until my order is in my customers mailbox?

~~~
harryzhang
Good feedback on the pricing page. We're working on a revamp of it now.

We ship worldwide and takes us 2 days to process/print the order...then the
only variable is shipping time based on the speed you want (so overnight to
ground depending how fast you need it).

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ChikkaChiChi
What's the use case for this? I guess it'd be more useful the deeper you get
into their pricing structure such as with photos or business cards; but it
doesn't seem like its priced all that competitively with established services.

If this were a price-attractive campaign mailing tool...well then we're in a
whole different ballgame. I could see Scrooge McDuck vaults of money being
made in disrupting the last true bastion of postal mailing services.

~~~
6thSigma
One example that came immediately to mind was invoices. I work with some
clients who prefer snail mail bills over email.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Freshbooks will snailmail your invoices.

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imcqueen
for what it's worth I've tried this service about 3 weeks ago. I printed a
sample postcard to test the quality. It was better than I expected, especially
coming from a pdf. At the time there was no way to print a two sided job (it's
probably supported now), but they accommodated my request and gave me a ton of
paper options that weren't available through the api.

Long story short, awesome customer experience and quality result.

~~~
harryzhang
Two sided is supported now! And thank you for using Lob!

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7cupsoftea
I used these guys for some fliers the other day and they were actually really
beautiful. Very approachable and great customer service. I highly recommend
them!

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beambot
Offtopic... but I'd love to hear the story of how they acquired a 3-letter
domain. That seems like quite a feat for a young startup.

~~~
wikiburner
What I'd like to know is how the hell do you get a 1 letter domain, like
x.com? They're the only company I've ever come across with one. You would
think it would be worth it for some highly funded startup to pay the premium a
1 letter domain would command, because it certainly would be novel and
attention getting to be something like z.com.

~~~
citricsquid
They are reserved by ICANN, however there are a few around. x.com is Paypal,
q.com is owned by Centurylink and z.com is owned by Nissan (although doesn't
resolve right now). You could theoretically purchase q, x or z.com from the
current owners, otherwise it's impossible to register them. I guess
theoretically a very well funded company could try and bribe ICANN to release
one to them, but that seems exceptionally unlikely.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-
level_doma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_domain)

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samwillis
This looks like a good service. We currently use Pwinty (www.pwinty.com) which
is operating in the same space. They are very good and we are very happy with
the service. If you think Lob is a good fit for your app do take a look at
Pwinty too, they have been running for about a year and have fulfilment
centres in both the us and uk.

~~~
meomix
Similarly, we use trypaper for some integrations and they've been great to
work with. It's great to see all this competition in this space.

~~~
jspaur
thanks :) we love working with our users!

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nghi199
Anyone knows the shipping & postage cost for their services? I couldn't find
any details on their page.

~~~
bavidar
Postage is .46 for letter, .33 cents for postcard, everything that is shipped
varies on destination. We ship worldwide.

~~~
anderspetersson
Where can I find out the pricing on shipping for each destination?

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dwrowe
I signed up for this last weekend, and had great followups with Harry Zhang,
one of the co-founders. Super impressed with the customer service / support.

~~~
harryzhang
Thanks for the kind words Dave!

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kevbam
I have been watching this since launch, I think it is a great concept. Really
looking forward to seeing it develop.

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daniloassis
very simple to use. i was in charge of developing their PHP client:
[https://github.com/lob/lob-php](https://github.com/lob/lob-php)

and already thinking into something that could use lob's potential. :)

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peterjancelis
Very impressive URL.

I assume one of the founders already owned it?

~~~
madsushi
They actually wrote about their experience here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6060942](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6060942)

~~~
citricsquid
Huh, I thought Jon Wheatley (Founder of Dailybooth, YC) owned it (lob.com) for
a long time (April 2012), it was listed on his website for a while and a
landing page for something he was working on for well over a year. I assumed
that they bought it from him (with YC "buddy" pricing).

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twidlit
Where is the pricing for stickers?

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gailees
Go Blue!

