

Postmates Debuts ‘Get It Now’ On-Demand Courier Service To The Public - ashbrown
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/17/postmates-debuts-get-it-now-on-demand-courier-service-to-the-public/

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askedrelic
I've used the beta for several months and it's been great. I just ordered
lunch with it, minutes ago actually. You can track my order live
<https://postmat.es/97MJQ6Is>

It makes great use of smartphone gps technology and the estimates have been
pretty accurate. I like things that are organized and predictable, very much
like Uber.

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ashbrown
Matt, thanks so much for being a part of the beta. We incorporated a ton of
feedback from those orders into the product that is live today. Definitely let
us know if there's anything we can do to improve the experience; we're paying
super close attention to these early orders.

~~~
eslachance
I'm looking at the tracking page for askedrelic's order, and the only thing
that would make this the best tracking page in the world, is for Alex, the
courier, to be able to add notes on the page - for example, "Ordered and paid
for", and then "Next in line", or "5 minutes more due to a problem with the
grill" when relevant.

Also, the page doesn't say when the courier arrived at the location, so while
we know he accepted the delivery 50 minutes ago, I can't tell whether the food
has been ordered 10, 20 or 45 minutes ago. (I do see "pick up in 0 minutes"
though, but it doesn't mean anything at this point).

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bastian
I think the idea of letting the courier add notes is amazing. And yes, there
are a few things we can do better in regards to the actual status of the
delivery. I personally don't like the pickup in 0 minutes either. Give us a
few days :)

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ad2175
Kozmo is back! [<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kozmo.com>]

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bastian
I like to think of it as Kozmo with a business model but then again, i'm also
one of the founders and i guess we all know to well that being overly
optimistic about your own startup is one the biggest weaknesses (strengths) of
founders. But seriously, we do charge for deliveries, we worked hard on an
algorithm that helps us determine the costs of a delivery based on historic
data and most of us are engineers who are in love with the idea of solving big
problems. ;)

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eslachance
This brings back to mind <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3971212>
(Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers)

This seems like exactly the sort of thing George Spencer is talking about -
doing courier _right_. Kudos to you guys, I hope you'll be able to expand
internationally to your neighbors up north and across the pond once you've
conquered the US.

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nottombrown
I used the beta to get a last-minute gift for my mom that I wouldn't have
otherwise had time for. The app let me find and call the store to confirm that
they had the item I wanted before having it delivered.

Amazon Prime for everything. Can't wait till the NYC launch.

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famousactress
I'm confused about the 20-40% commission on purchases though. That seems like
it would severely limit my use of the service. Why should buying a 200$ pair
of jeans cost me that much more to deliver than a 50$ pair?

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bastian
It's a typo. What TC describes is our commission of the delivery fee. ;)
Otherwise i would agree with you that this would make very little sense!

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famousactress
Oh good! That's much better. Hopefully they've corrected it, because it
honestly made me mentally file away the service as "won't use".

~~~
ashbrown
We've asked them to change it, so hopefully it'll get edited soon! Thanks for
pointing it out.

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_pius
Having been in the beta for the past several months, I've been very impressed
with the service. Super useful!

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eklitzke
This looks really awesome. I can't wait until it's available in Los Angeles.

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joelrunyon
Looks pretty cool! Can't wait till it starts rolling out over here in chicago.

BTW @bastian, might want to talk to TechCrunch and have them fix the link to
your site at the beginning of the article.

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cookingrobot
Congrats on the launch. Please bring this to Seattle!

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ashlive11
When will you be available in Oakland/Berkeley?

