
Show HN: I'm renting a truck to make buying and selling furniture easier - ed
http://thedealtruck.com/?hn
======
ed
Hey guys, I built this with the team at Fobo.net. It’s just a quick experiment
I put together during the week.

The idea is to rent a truck and drive around the city picking up anything you
want to sell. Furniture, appliances, etc. – anything of value that fits on a
moving truck, as long as it isn't broken, in poor condition, or something
you'd typically donate.

At pickup, we photograph your items, put them on the truck, ask for minimum
selling prices, and notify SF folks of the deal. Highest bidder after 90 mins
gets the item delivered. We have 100’s of interested buyers in SF so far.

Would love feedback. To cover the cost of delivery and movers I ask that you
split the final price 50/50 on large items. Happy to wave the cost on more
high-end items for now, just ask.

~~~
kansface
I like this idea quite a bit. Both selling and buying furniture on CL is a
nightmare. I moved to the city 3 years ago from across the country and was
forced to sell furnishings for a 3 bedroom house. I don't expect you will have
much trouble on the supply side because CL sucks:

1\. CL interface is abysmal. No way to tell people stuff already sold or to
automatically repost. 2\. Dealing with humans was trouble. From time to time,
someone would show up and offer a fraction of the asking price. 3\. People
can't move big stuff. 4\. We were particularly time sensitive. We like
sleeping on a bed, but we also don't want to be stuck with one. 5\. People
come by at random times, or don't show at all, or schedule a pickup a 10 days
in advance. It would have been great to just load everything at once and be
done with it.

I understand you don't want to rent a warehouse, but a 90 minute auction is
too short.

On another note, this business model reminds me of modcloth. When they first
started, I think they used to travel around and buy up vintage clothes to sell
on ebay. Much later, demand outstripped supply so they started contracting out
to small shops to make replicas.

~~~
personlurking
CL = Craigslist, for those who don't know.
[http://sfbay.craigslist.org](http://sfbay.craigslist.org)

------
bpowah
A number of random thoughts come to mind. Apologies if this comes across as
negative. I like the idea because it makes selling a hassle-free experience,
but the way I am imagining it feels inefficient to me. "Free delivery" == $150
for a $300 couch? Or am I missing something? Does your truck sit for 90 mins
during the auction? or are you making more pickups? If multitasking, isn't a
truck a FILO storage for a FIFO process? Couldn't I sell on CL, get a bigger
audience and hire a delivery/mover service _if_ the buyer doesn't have a
friend with a pickup truck? If a mover service is more expensive than you,
then why? A quick search looks like I can hire a two man moving crew for $75
an hour.

~~~
vacri
It's an interesting point - cheaper items are not worth the time to the
company to drive to pick up and subsequently to deliver, and more expensive
items are not worth the cut for the seller, who can get cheaper pickup
elsewhere.

~~~
infinitone
Wait, I thought he was advocating that for more expensive items, its more
expensive to find a someone to deliver/come pickup? In which, OP's idea works
better only for expensive items.

------
ajkjk
I love this idea, but I'd love it even more if you donated stuff if it didn't
sell so I didn't have to. Having access to a truck is hard when you live in a
city and mostly don't use cars.

And you might want to flesh out a bit more on being a mobile consignment shop.
I mean - the problem you're really solving is "I want to buy something on
Craigslist, but neither the buyer nor seller have time to move it". No reason
that should come with the restrictions of 90 minutes for moving.

~~~
malloreon
If they were unscrupulous, they could just claim none of your stuff sold, sell
it, and keep 100%. Returning the unsold items keeps them honest.

Not in any way claiming they are, this just makes sense as a policy to build
trust with sellers.

~~~
avalaunch
They're holding an auction for each item. Presumably the auction will be
listed somewhere on their site so you could easily see if anyone bid or not.

~~~
wingerlang

        int getBids(){
          //return bids;
          return 0;
        }

~~~
peterjancelis
/@random_buyer: "Hey I tried to buy this closet but the website didn't accept
my bid!" \- 256 retweets

------
brandonhsiao
One thing I notice is that when I hover over the buttons they get shorter.
Rather an off-putting hover state to me.

~~~
alexjeffrey
seriously? that's all you have to add to the conversation?

~~~
wavefunction
It's an incredibly important point for the firm, considering that design
decision flies in the face of good design, presumably has been
viewed/interacted with by multiple people at the firm, and is somehow still in
place in the live site.

Details matter and you either get this, or you don't.

~~~
alexjeffrey
while I agree that details matter in design, a. it's not a big deal and b.
mentioning it doesn't really add to the conversation at hand. I thought HN was
all about trying to ensure that comments were useful to the topic?

~~~
saturdayplace
I think it's a useful bit of feedback.

~~~
cthulhuhodor
this is HN, this kind of feedback and observations by pros are why I'm here.

------
n0body
Seems any old idea is great in San Francisco.

For what it's worth, 90 minutes is a very short for an auction, and only
getting 50% is daylight robbery

~~~
pessimizer
If they do a lot of business, and buy more trucks and get more employees - and
if not them, the competition after people discover that this is a viable
business model - the 50% might lower with economies of scale giving them more
room to take a reasonable profit.

Depends on how fast they can keep those trucks moving. I'd start investing in
some math and software implementing that math in order to optimize those
routes. You could tie it right into the auction website and give all the
drivers webapps feeding them their next pickup/dropoff points. You would be
able to charge based on distance/size calculated on the fly. I see room for
making this really cheap. If you wrote good software for it, you could license
the platform and not even actually do the business - this is a natural
franchise.

Sorry, just rambling. I think this idea is great if done well.

------
ghaff
In general, it seems as if there might be a market for people who want to get
rid of stuff but want to expend near-zero effort doing so even if it means
significantly sub-optimizing the revenue received (I raise hand for most any
item under $100 or that is a pain to ship/offload.)

I'm fine with getting 50% for stuff that would otherwise sit in my attic or
garage. That said, I suspect that this is a tough business. From what I can
gather, most of the eBay-based versions of this have pretty much died out.

Edit: And I should add that, for anything that's bulky or a pain to deal with,
I want it gone. I guess I'd be OK with smaller consignment items being
returned but not furniture.

------
analog31
I like the idea that the truck is the warehouse. Of course it's an issue to
get an item out if it's buried, but that's just a limitation on how tight you
can pack the truck.

Putting things on pallets might let you slide them around and manage the space
better. Also, I don't know the weather in SF, but I'd never trust the floor of
a box truck to stay dry in the Midwest, and pallets keep things off the floor.

A make-or-break will be how much unsold stuff you end up driving around. I
wonder if there's some way you can discourage stratospheric speculative
pricing, by offering a better commission if the seller lets you set the
starting price.

~~~
KhalPanda
Regarding buried goods - it depends on the truck. I don't know about the US,
but in the UK curtain-sided lorries aren't uncommon, making it relatively easy
to access pretty much ever part of the trailer.

~~~
analog31
I'm beginning to see those in the US, maybe within the past five years. Mostly
tractor/trailer rigs rather than smaller trucks.

------
pappyo
If I am a seller, what is my motivation to use your product? I could easily
post my things on CL, tell the buyers to come pick up, and I get full price
for my stuff. Where do you add value to the seller where CL doesn't?

~~~
ryandrake
Selling on CL is a huge annoyance. I've tried to sell a number of things
there, and mostly get flaky "buyers" who never respond back after their
initial "I'm interested" message. Then you have the problem of giving your
home address to a stranger. I'd be open to trying this service if they ever
expand out to the East Bay. I've got a bunch of stuff in my garage I'd love to
sell, but the existing channels (CL, eBay, etc.) are total pains in the ass.

~~~
Scoundreller
And from the other point of view, I've sent reasonable offers (based on local
market rates) to sellers that "Had to have it gone by the end of the month!",
gotten a "No way, I paid $X for this new just 12 months ago!" only to see it
relisted the next month.

This system makes that "Get it gone now!" constraint real.

------
jiaweihli
You'll have quite a bit of competition!:
[https://www.moveloot.com/](https://www.moveloot.com/)

------
avalaunch
I think you may run into issues of too many items not selling if you allow the
owners to set the minimum. Perhaps you could offer a lower percentage cut if
the owner agrees to a no minimum auction.

------
stefan_kendall3
I wish you luck, but I don't see how this is sustainably profitable. People
think their junk is worth way more than it is, and "minimum price" will wreck
this.

~~~
mr_luc
I think an easy answer would be a "stocking fee" if the item doesn't sell.

That will encourage people to pick a price others might jump at. Some fine-
tuning would of course be required.

------
ryandrake
Not sure if anyone's tried this (probably tons have), but what would be even
better for sellers, would be some kind of a mobile pawn shop, that shows up at
your door, cleans out your garage of all the crap you'd otherwise toss away or
donate, but would rather have a few bucks for, and then re-sells it all on
their own time. I'd choose that any day over holding a "traditional" garage
sale.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I think 1-800-GOT-JUNK does that.

------
beenpoor
This is actually a nice idea. Lots of potential. Congrats on building a MVP!
Few things that come to my mind \- 50/50 split seems pricey! \- How about you
do it differently ? pick up only those that have guaranteed buyer and you take
a commision from both seller and buyer

------
ultimoo
On a side note, how is the bed bug situation in SF? Is it typically safe to
buy used furniture?

When I used to live in San Jose, it was common knowledge to not buy any
furniture from the downtown area since it almost always brought in bed bugs.

~~~
ars
I can't answer your question, but you could quarantine the furniture for 6
months at high temperature (100-120f), like in a typical attic in summer.

------
nobodysfool
I can see it working maybe, but still, it seems like you could just put
something up on CL just as easy, and nobody is going to pick up your stuff and
return it, they will just pick it up when they buy it.

~~~
unreal37
Having recently sold some furniture on CL, the number one problem buyers said
was "I want this but can you deliver?" Nobody has transportation for big
furniture. It's a source of friction between buyers and sellers for sure.

------
fuzzythinker
Wish list:

\- Make the list of items available online without signup

\- At the minimum, don't require a phone#, ask for email instead if you don't
want list to be public for some reason

No way giving away my phone# even if you promise no spams.

------
Raphmedia
Fix the hover effect on the buttons. The click too. Don't remove the border,
make it white. Or if you remove it, put a margin that is the same height as
the border was.

------
natch
Why do I need to provide a password to change stuff later? Couldn't you do it
just with a text confirmation?

------
theklub
I love the idea, I get that its an experiment and I'm interested in seeing
what happens. Good luck!!

------
elyrly
This should create a niche market within the used furniture market with
comfortable ease.

------
intosethg
Didn't moveloot a YC company from the last class already starting doing
this...

~~~
fataliss
They don't accept Mattresses or Appliances which is probably a big market by
itself. Half of the CL ads (in my area) in furniture are beds and mattresses.

------
nness
The thing that really stands out is comprehensive and liability insurance?
What happens if someone is injured moving a someone's stuff, or if the truck
has an accident and its content are damaged, or even stolen?

You put a incredible amount of liability on yourself with this idea.

------
sasad
eBay also provides a similar service. How is this any different ?

[http://sellforme.ebay.com/](http://sellforme.ebay.com/)

~~~
genwin
On that page I readily see significant differences between the two. I'd prefer
The Deal Truck if it were in my area.

------
mrec
What happens if no bids meet the minimum price?

------
enahs-sf
no HTTPS on the signup page :/

------
jayzalowitz
Because screw bernal, amirite?

