
Show HN: Built a 'Kayak for courier services' - laurabw
http://www.goshippo.com
======
frankdenbow
Looks interesting. We are dealing with finding better shipping prices for
international shipments on shirts and what we have found is that distributors
that ship really high volume are able to negotiate better rates. Does Shippo
have the ability to take advantage of the scale as the site increases in
shipments? How do you differ from EasyPost?

~~~
laurabw
Hi frankdenbow, it's great to hear from you. My favourite point of
differentiation between us and all existing shipping startups is that we're
building a database that aims at integrating all existing courier service not
only the 4 big ones (FedEx, UPS, TNT, DHL). The main thought behind our
concept is that the small local courier services mostly offer much more
competitive prices than the big 4 ones. However, they are difficult to find
and compare and most people don't bother searching. At the same time we're
negotiating with our courier services to get discounts because of economics of
scale. Right now, our discounts are not very high yet. But as traffic
increases we'll be able to go back to the courier services and negotiate
better rates. That's the goal!

~~~
https403
Don't understand your negotiated prices apply to my shipments? I noticed that
user is requested to create account at respective carrier. Could not use it
since the server ajax is not responding. PS - Request
URL:[https://goshippo.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?from-
dd=Orange%...](https://goshippo.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?from-
dd=Orange%2C+CA+92865&to-dd=Moorpark%2C+CA+93021&from-country=US&from-
state=CA&from-city=Orange&from-ZIP=92865&from-ZIP-type=user&from-street=&to-
country=US&to-state=CA&to-city=Moorpark&to-ZIP=93021&to-ZIP-
type=user&action=ajax_hook_get_rates&to%5BStreet%5D=&dimensions-
length=12&dimensions-width=12&dimensions-height=5&dimensions-unit=inch&weight-
value=80&weight-unit=lbs) Request Method:GET Status Code:500 Internal Server
Error

~~~
laurabw
I'm sincerely sorry about the server problems. We received an overwhelming
response from the HN community today (thanks!) and the server became quite
slow because of that. We didn't expect that and were unprepared with our MVP.
Yes, depending on the courier service we're sometimes able to pass on our
discounts.

------
ChrisNorstrom
The results are wildly inaccurate due to the omission of online rates for
USPS. If you have a paypal account you can buy and print shipping labels at
home and save $1-5 on every package you send. It makes USPS the cheapest
shipping option for nearly everything including international shipping.

Also, FedEx and UPS charge an extra $3 or so when delivering to a residential
address. So the low prices shown on your site don't reflect real world usage.

~~~
laurabw
Hi ChrisNorstrom, I appreciate your concern and thanks for the feedback. We've
integrated the official APIs of FedEx, UPS and USPS and are optimising the
results every day. I will look into the points you mentioned and check if they
are not reflected by the APIs already. We are aware of the residential vs
commercial address difference and as of tomorrow we'll have the
differentiation live.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Thanks, I love the site btw. I was just in a rush to type it out and head to
work.

USPS has discounted online rates that apply to everyone using Stamps.com,
Paypal, Ebay, Amazon, Etsy, Endicia, Pitney Bowes, and any other postage
printing service.

~~~
laurabw
Thanks a lot for letting us know! :)

------
tbran
I'm launching a marketplace within a month or so for custom machining and
fabrication. Vendors want instantaneous quotes and labels. I'll probably be
integrating with EasyPost to start. Here are some thoughts:

I need an API so a vendor can print labels from my site. I want one-click
shipping so that they get 1) a label 2) billed 3) pickup. Speed is important
to my vendors. Most of them bill hourly and think of their time that way so
anything that reduces time per job is a big deal.

My flow looks like:

Customer enters specs and shipping info for a price quote -> Vendor responds
with a quote including shipping

If all goes well, I'll also do instantaneous pricing for certain machining
processes. Unless I missed something in the docs, EasyPost apparently does not
do quotes based solely on zip/dimensions/weight and I never got a response
from support when I asked. For me, this means that to get a shipping quote,
customers also need to enter at least an "address_line1". There may be a
business/technical reason for this, but I'm worried that having to enter that
additional piece of personally-identifying info on my site will be a
dealbreaker for first-time customers while I'm starting up.

For my use case, I'd like to see Stripe Connect functionality for shipping:
vendors sign up for shipping through OAuth and then I interact with the
shipping service on behalf of each vendor. On EasyPost, it appears that a
UPS/Fedex/USPS/whatever account is tied to the EasyPost account. It was
suggested that I bill vendors for shipping and go through my own carrier
accounts, but this seems messy.

If you could address some concerns for marketplaces in the future, I'd be
pretty happy.

~~~
laurabw
Hi tbran, thanks for leaving a comment. Here's my take on your concerns:
Easypost is a really great service. They were in YC and I think they are a
great choice for the flow you mentioned. We're quite different from them
(while we're still addressing the same problem).

The address_line 1 is not necessary to get an accurate quote. However, it is
necessary to generate a label that you'll need for sending the package. You'll
have to be careful to enter the correct address. FedEx charges extra
afterwards for address corrections. Our goal was to build an API that allows
you to get accurate quotes without having to enter a lot of data. However for
the final label purchase the exact address will be necessary.

UPS/FedEx etc. don't allow you to pass on your account to people that are not
directly connected with your business. I assume that is what you meant by
"messy." If you still want to do that stripe connect is certainly a good
choice. This is exactly what we're working on - to get contracts with courier
services to eliminate this problem.

About the flow that we had envisioned for our service: customers choose the
product they want to buy -> tell us in which country they live -> we show them
all available courier services -> they chose the servicelevel that suits their
needs best (fastest, cheapest, whatever) -> check out -> the label is directly
sent to the vendor -> vendor sticks it on the package -> brings it to the post
office/gets pickup (vendor can specify if only pickups are allowed & which day
is best for pick up) -> done (all through API)

Just email me at laura(at)goshippo.com if you have any more questions. Happy
to help out.

~~~
tbran
Regarding the "messy account passing", I'd just like to be able to interact
with a vendor's own UPS account with minimal setup from my vendor. Thanks for
the info! It clears some things up.

~~~
laurabw
I don't know a service that offers multiple courier services and allows
multiple accounts... If you want you can integrate the API of one courier
service, such as UPS, and offer access with multiple accounts. Or you can use
Easypost and have access to multiple courier services with one single account.
I'm sorry that I couldn't be more helpful. Good luck!

------
jhund
When scanning the HN titles, I first thought you built a physical kayak that
will be used by kayak-couriers (as in bike-couriers).

~~~
clintonb11
ha ha ha, I totally thought the same thing. I was excited to see what city
would benefit from from a kayak delivery service. I assumed venice :-)

------
adyus
I was under the impression (hearsay) that the Big Two carriers at least
(FedEx, UPS) do not appreciate having their prices directly compared and
contrasted.

Is offering this service only for international shipments a way to get around
that?

~~~
laurabw
Hey adyus, valid question. FedEx and UPS have similar points in their T&Cs
that talk about comparison. Feel free to get in touch personally to talk about
possible solutions!

~~~
dcarmo
Do you guys have contracts with the carriers to have access to their API?

~~~
laurabw
Yep. Ping me if you need more information about the contracts.

------
avalaunch
Cool idea but I couldn't get it to work.

It kept throwing errors saying that I needed to pick a valid zip code or city
from the dropdown (despite having done so). I had 45247 and Tokyo Japan as my
two selections. It also said "This field is required" with a bubble that
pointed off screen with no way to scroll over to whatever the field was.

Using an iPhone 5, ios 7.

~~~
67726e
Trying to use Tokyo might be your problem. There is a notice posted at the top
of the page saying "Supporting Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, United
Kingdom and the United States to date" so it looks like your selection
shouldn't work.

~~~
laurabw
Hey 67726e, you're right. We're currently showing the best rates for these
countries, meaning that we have more than one courier provider for them in our
database to allow comparison. All the other countries should work nevertheless
simply without "good" (cheap) rates. So it's our bad, apologies!

------
Riseed
Wonderful! I don't ship internationally very often, but I've wanted something
like this every time.

I tried sorting my search results using the buttons on the upper right, but
none of them worked. I suggest also making the column labels work for toggle
sorting.

The option to include a screenshot with feedback is a great idea.

~~~
laurabw
Thanks for the great feedback and the compliment! You're right, the sorting
feature is still not functioning well. It's on the to do list (the to dos are
pilling up with all the great feedback we're getting here:)). Thanks for
letting me know!

------
nodata
Brilliant! Suggestions: 1. Can you enable keyboard navigation for the
dropdowns? 2. Currency seems to default to my language setting, not to my
location. Can this be configurable? Bugs: 1. Sorting doesn't seem to work. 2.
Your blog seems to be having performance problems.

~~~
laurabw
Thanks, much appreciated :) Keyboard navigation should work already. Which
browser are you using? About the bug: thanks, will fix it now!

~~~
nodata
Keyboard navigation: I'm running Firefox on Linux. Tabbing between fields
works, up/down arrow to select from dropdown doesn't work at the moment.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Same for me FF25 on WinXP.

Did a trial entry for the UK between cities and found that UPS was cheapest,
if I book it I'll try and do so through the site.

------
berkes
What is the timeline for other European countries?

Personally, I am most interested in the Netherlands, since I am building
e-commerce sites there. (And to persuade you: .nl might be a small market, in
absolute numbers, but percentagewise it tops the European charts in online
sales).

~~~
laurabw
Hi Berkes, let's talk about this via email. I'm laura(at)goshippo.com. We'd
love to prioritise countries for the HN community and would like to learn more
about your shipping needs & preferences!

------
mpermar
Worked for me. Love the idea. Although I would not use it myself mainly
because I rarely send anything ( just once in last 10 years maybe ). I am not
sure if I am a rare case or just common case.

However, turn this into a brokerage for ecommerce shops, ebay sellers, etc...
and, $$$

~~~
laurabw
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, this is exactly what we're trying to do. Looking
for beta customers at the moment that offer platforms to connect buyers and
sellers. For them the price and convenience counts. If anybody here wants to
beta test, ping me!

------
throwmeaway2525
Looks good! My search did timeout with a couple of attempts on "We are
searching" (don't know if it's the HN effect). It worked on the third try.

A minor copy change suggestion:

"only pay after you created" -> "only pay after you create"

~~~
laurabw
hahaha, yes that's the HN effect. I didn't expect that that many people would
click on it and we're now staring at GA overwhelmed by the response... Can't
even work on the bugs now because the server got so slow. Thanks for the
suggestion!

------
laurabw
PS.: working on label printing at the very moment. Anybody wants to beta test?
Ping me

~~~
laurabw
PPS.: If you want to send something and your country is not in our database,
please let me know asap and we'll insert the country into our database for
you. I saw that somebody tweeted that India would be interesting - we've
already negotiated the prices and will have them in the database soon. Email
me at laura (at) goshippo.com

------
jamese
An API for developers would be really nice for integrating into personal
ecommerce websites. It's a pain dealing with all the couriers individually.
Please also consider adding support for Purolator and Canada Post.

~~~
justinmares
You're pretty much describing EasyPost, right? They're a YC company out of the
last batch - [https://www.easypost.com/](https://www.easypost.com/)

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Thank you, thank you! I've been trying to remember their name for weeks.
Bookmarked :-)

------
jsilence
Like the idea and would love to use your service in the future. Don't worry
about the server problems. You are in Beta, so that's okay.

Keep up the good work! Hoping you have success!

~~~
laurabw
Hey jsilence, thanks for the great attitude. Which country are you based in?
Is it already in our database? Let me know when you use it and I'll get you a
test account :)

------
elwell
Most of your sitemap links go back to homepage (Investors for eg):
[https://goshippo.com/sitemap/](https://goshippo.com/sitemap/)

~~~
laurabw
You're right. It's still a MVP with. Sorry about that!

------
ozh
I get a 503 -- thanks HN! ;) -- but a completely empty page. Consider
configuring your server so that a minimum output is sent in order not to
confuse the average joe later.

~~~
laurabw
Thanks for the suggestion, ozh! I'm sorry about the server problem. I didn't
expect such an overwhelming response rate on HN and all we can do now is stare
at GA in disbelieve ;)

~~~
agnuku
This site will certainly be useful in the next month when I need to ship a
couple of prototypes overseas for testing. Its currently not working for me,
but looks like you're being slammed with traffic. I'll bookmark and try again
later. Good luck with it!

~~~
laurabw
Awesome, agnuku. Please let me know which country you need as an outbound
country and I'll add the country into our database asap in case it's not
already in there! And please do send me a msg on laura (at) goshippo.com. I'm
happy to give everybody here from HN the service without taking commission.

------
mc32
This is great and looks like it has great potential to expand into added
services. Do you plan on having international "less than container" air
shipping rates?

~~~
laurabw
Hi mc32, thanks for your positive response. I'm glad you like it. Yes, we have
a lot of expansion plans. But step after step ;) We're going into new
countries first and working with beta customers to improve our existing
product.

------
onehp
Your "This field is required" validation labels obscure the postcode lookup
dropdown for me when I submit before inputting any details. Otherwise, very
nice!

~~~
laurabw
This is exactly the feedback I was hoping to get. Thanks a lot! I'm on it! I
knew I could count on HN. Server is getting super slow though...

------
kd5bjo
"Find and compare shipping rates of more than 100 carriers" but only 11 listed
on the "Supported Couriers" page. What am I missing?

~~~
laurabw
Hi kd5bja, valid question. The statement you quoted is our vision for the
future. We just launched with our MVP and we're working on the courier side to
get as many courier services into our database as possible. At the moment we
don't cover all courier services globally. We've got the courier services from
Germany, UK, Sweden, Finland and Norway in our database. That's why it's only
11 couriers. I hope for your understanding and I really hope that we can reach
our vision soon.

~~~
kd5bjo
The way your frontpage is built, it looks like a claim of what you currently
provide. It's also odd that you show the DHL and TNT logos on the front page
but don't actually support them yet.

I like your vision and hope you get there, but misleading potential customers
like that doesn't sit well with a lot of people.

~~~
laurabw
I agree with your point and we never had the intention to mislead our
customers. I'm sorry if it appeared as if we were trying to mislead them! We
just launched and there was no bad intention behind putting the logos up
there. I guess we were just a little too rash with that decision. We're
currently in talks with both TNT and DHL and will have them in the database
within the next two weeks. I'd just like to assure you again that there was no
bad intention at all!

------
pushkargaikwad
Looks very nice, I see there are no Asian courier service provider, hope to
see them added soon as I can certainly see real world usage of shippo

~~~
laurabw
Which country are you in? I'm taking suggestions which ones to include next ;)
Just finished negotiating with some Indian courier services and will insert
them into the database soon! Will then have a look at China next... Please do
let me know which countries you want to see next.

~~~
dcarmo
Being an aspiring entrepreneur, I'd love to see Brazil there.

~~~
laurabw
Noted down, dcarmo!

------
cpursley
This is great! Useful product and performs well - what's the tech stack? What
are you using for addresses/locations?

~~~
laurabw
Hi cpursley, we use Google maps/places API and library. Feel free to ping me
if you want to know more details about the tech.

~~~
watermel0n
What about server side implementation? I saw that you are using Apache. If you
are on Django or Rails you can easily switch to Nginx and gain some benefits.

~~~
laurabw
I have to admit with much shame that it's still PHP based but moving is on the
to do list!

~~~
dkroy
You shouldn't feel shame about that, even though it looks like you just used
it as an MVP tool.

------
ldn_tech_exec1
It keeps getting stuck on loading, but seems a really great idea. Where are
you guys based? Would love to talk - @arush

~~~
laurabw
Hey arush, thanks for the positive feedback! I'm sorry about the server
problem. We weren't expecting that many clicks when I posted it on HN... ;)
We'll be based in SF starting from next week Tuesday. Want to move this
conversation to email? I'm laura(at)goshippo.com

------
hoopism
I put two US addresses not knowing if it was for international only and it
took over 2 min before I close the window.

~~~
laurabw
Hi hoopism, thanks for letting me know. We are also able to show domestic
shipments (the rates are not the best). The problem is because our server
can't handle the massive traffic from HN. I apologise for the inconvenience,
I'm really sorry about the server issues!!

~~~
hoopism
Understandable...

Best of luck and bookmarked for future use. Thanks for reply.

~~~
laurabw
Thanks for understanding :) I'm offering the HN community the service without
commission as a thank you for their feedback. Let me know when you want to use
it and I'll give you a test account. I'm laura(at)goshippo.com

------
babo
Switching between imperial and metric system based on IP address would be a
nice touch to your international users.

~~~
laurabw
And now it's on my to do list as well. Thanks!

------
mansigandhi
Amazing! We're building a Kayak for Healthcare Services btw. Launching next
week :)

Love your product.

~~~
thetylerhayes
This is relevant to my interests. Where can I learn more?

------
Semaphor
This is a great idea :) Already sent 3 bugs / UX problems via the UserVoice
thing.

~~~
laurabw
Thanks for reporting the bugs and thanks for taking your time to help us
out!!! :)

------
canistr
Great work. This is exactly what I've been looking for to sell some of my
stuff.

~~~
laurabw
Hey canistr, thanks for the feedback? Where are you based? I'd love to offer
everybody here on HN the service without taking commission for a trial period
in exchange for occasional feedback. Why don't you message me at
laura(at)goshippo.com and we can talk

------
smailex
Could you please tell me what the difference between you and smailex.com?

~~~
laurabw
Hi smailex, sure! We're building a database that will eventually include all
international courier services not only the 4 big ones (FedEx, UPS, TNT, DHL).
I understand that smailex only integrates FedEx and UPS, right?

~~~
smailex
Smailex will eventually include all carriers around the globe too.

------
solscreen
Pretty good ShipHawk Clone

~~~
laurabw
Hi solscreen, not exactly. ShipHawk is offering the most convenient service to
their US customers. Focus is on convenience (they're doing an amazing job at
picking up stuff and packing for you), not price sensitivity, transparency or
variety. They help you with packaging especially with items that are very
difficult to pack (furniture etc). We're a big database for all local and
international delivery services (not only the 4 big ones FedEx, UPS, TNT,
DHL). We compare and we allow you to buy the shipping labels.

------
caublestone
Amazing service. I have been looking for this for a while. Thank you.

~~~
laurabw
Hey caublestone, thanks for the compliment. Which country are you in? Is it in
our database already? If not I'll include it for you. Also, I'm really happy
to offer everybody from HN the service without taking commission for a test
phase in exchange for occasional feedback. Let me know if interested. You can
reach me on laura(at)goshippo.com

~~~
caublestone
Hi Laura! I am in the US. I was able to use the service just fine. Thank you.

Matt

------
tengkahwee
It's a 503 error now but would be nice to see Singapore inside!

~~~
laurabw
Hey tengkahwee, thanks for your feedback. We're moving to Asia next. Just
promised another commentator to do India first but after that I'll get
Singapore into the database. Can I get back to you when we're ready? Would you
like to beta test?

------
volandovengo
This is amazing. I've been wanting this for so long!!!

~~~
laurabw
Hi volandovenge, I just love getting positive feedback! What country are you
sending from? If it's not in our database let me know and I'll prioritise it
for you. Btw. we're offering test accounts to the HN community as a thank you
for the time you took to give me feedback. Test accounts won't take commission
for a while. Let me know if you need one. I'm laura(at)goshippo.com

------
geekyguy
I had to reload the page 8 times for it to actually load.

~~~
laurabw
Hey geekyguy, thanks for clicking on the link and I'll have to apologize about
the server problem. I'm really really sorry. I didn't expect the HN community
would be that interested about Shippo... The server should normally adjust
automatically to the traffic but somehow it's trashed right now. Sorry again
for the inconvenience!

~~~
realcul
Just curious - where have you hosted your service and what mechanism did you
use to scale based on traffic?

~~~
laurabw
Hi realcul, we're hosting on AWS with elastic load balancing.

------
dupa99
cool but the name have bad connotation. go shit poo ?

~~~
makr17
funny, I initially read it as gossip-oh, also not exactly positive....

~~~
laurabw
Ok, this is really good to know... Thanks.

------
ye
Your website is all broken.

I get a "503 Service Unavailable: Back-end server is at capacity" for this:

[https://goshippo.com/wp-
content/themes/wpbootstrap/images/lo...](https://goshippo.com/wp-
content/themes/wpbootstrap/images/logo/logo-beta.png)

~~~
laurabw
I'm sorry, Ye. I really am super sorry about the server problems and I
apologise to everybody who can't access the site. We simply did not expect
such an overwhelming response from the HN community and we weren't prepared
for it. Again, I apologise for the inconvenience and hope for your patience
and understanding

