
Shypmate (YC W16) Pays Travelers To Bring Products To Ghana And Nigeria - wyndham
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/28/shypmate-pays-travelers-to-bring-products-to-ghana-and-nigeria/
======
kwadwon
My name is Kwadwo, one of the cofounders of Shypmate. Shypmate is a way for
people in Nigeria and Ghana to buy items and goods from the US and get it
delivered through a traveler heading to one of those countries. We pay the
travelers, the shoppers get their item at an affordable shipping price, and
everyone is mostly happy. Perry Ogwuche, another cofounder, immigrated from
Nigeria to the US for school and as a student had a pretty hard time finding
an affordable way to send things back home. He often would wait until a friend
was traveling back before sending things. So we started Shypmate to facilitate
that behavior and process.

We'd love your thoughts on feedback on the idea and process. People can make
orders through the website, WhatsApp number, or email. We only deliver items
that have been purchased through Shypmate and never let travelers carry items
that Shypmate does not buy directly. On the other end, shoppers can meet
travelers at the airport or pay an extra fee for local delivery. Our goal is
to make international shopping and shipping affordable and fast in countries
where UPS, Fedex, and DHL charge too much.

~~~
amazon_not
How do you deal with import duties and taxes? Who gets burnt if the buyer
fails to collect and pay duties and taxes?

How will you deal with courier blaming you for any contraband they knowingly
or unknowingly import? E.g. knowingly, but inserted in the package provided by
you or unknowingly if the vendor provides the contraband in the package?

~~~
kwadwon
If the item being delivered is over a certain value we'd have the shoppers (in
Ghana or Nigeria) cover duties and taxes.

We do hope to iterate and make the process more seamless but right now we
package and seal the items in Shypmate packaging when we send it to the
traveler. It is a very valid issue with preventing any contraband and making
sure the traveler is safe. The couriers are also vetted before we allow them
to carry packages for us. There is a certain amount of trust on both ends that
is required for this to be a seamless process.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If the item being delivered is over a certain value we'd have the shoppers
> (in Ghana or Nigeria) cover duties and taxes.

Isn't it usual for countries to charge import duties on _any_ goods
(regardless of value) brought for trade (including for delivery to a
purchaser) rather than for personal use, but allowing some exemptions for
personal use? Is the "over a certain value" here an indication that the
business model has couriers misrepresent items being delivered as personal-use
items if they are within the allowed personal use quotas, even if though they
are trade items?

~~~
amazon_not
Are you providing your couriers with any documentation stating that they are
acting as your transport agents in shipping parcels into the country in an
attempt to shield them from any liability?

Do you provide all the necessary documentation for importing and clearing
customs and/or do you train your couriers on how to perform these duties?

Do you provide couriers with legal representation in-country and will you
cover all costs for their defense?

~~~
tcokoro
We currently do not but these are things that we are looking into as we get
feedback from current deliveries and quickly iterate. We are open and
transparent and let the travelers know what things Shypmate covers and what we
don't.

~~~
amazon_not
Please stop before somebody gets hurt.

~~~
sdoering
Why save people from themselves, if the do this naively?

If anyone does use this service (as a courier) and if they do so without
asking these obvious questions and then get burned - why protect them?

People are (imho) obliged to think for themselves. If they fail to do so why
have sympathy?

------
biot
Why not purchase these items via your company, batch them up into pallet-sized
shipments, then arrange for commercial air transportation? You can then
provide commercial invoices, cover any duty and taxes, have insurance to cover
the goods from loss or damage during transport, and (bonus!) comply with the
importation laws of the destination country.

I bet that would work out to be less than $25/item and you wouldn't have to
count on mules to do your legwork for you.

It might even work out well as a UPS/Fedex competitor, saving shipping costs
by batching shipments together and allowing you to expand into other
countries. Though I'd be very surprised if this isn't already a solved
shipping/logistics problem. It's not like transporting items between countries
hasn't been around for centuries already; although existing solutions don't
have the novelty your company brings to the table: offloading legal compliance
onto your mules.

------
NnamdiJr
This is really a great idea.

The number of issues surrounding the idea (customs, legal issues, etc.) are
obvious, and the discussions around them reminds me of the questions thrown at
many of the other major sharing economy start-ups initially (Uber, AirBnB, et
al.), but with a good team and some experimentation they will figure them out,
as other major startups have done and continue to do.

People who have spent a good chunk of time in countries outside the US,
already know people have been informally doing this en masse for a _long_
time. I have family in in West Africa who would be using this years ago if
available, and I have lived in Asia, and other countries where every time I
travel there are friends and friends of friends who ask me to buy and carry
goods on their behalf, in both directions.

To me it seems Shypmate is just creating a formal system for these actions to
take place, and if successful, will make it more efficient, useful, and
available to more people while extracting some value for themselves (as any
startup seeking profitability should).

Good luck to the team. I think there is a lot of potential here.

~~~
sambadance
I wish the team luck; but I think that most of that luck will occur if they
pivot hard away from their current tactics.

Governments don't really care about informal smuggling (e.g. somebody bringing
a laptop with them, and leaving it behind) because it's not happening at scale
and it's impossible to police. But governments are going to care deeply about
a formalized smuggling organization that beats market prices by evading import
duties and VAT.

If this gets any traction, expect all inbound luggage to be searched for
anything wrapped in shipmates packaging; and for it to be seized and the
individual carrying it to be fined. It won't go well.

And the founders should not expect to ever visit home again... they'll get
arrested when they step off the plane.

~~~
chuk_u
"expect all inbound luggage to be searched for anything wrapped in shipmates
packaging"...ok so wouldn't the couriers then just wait until after they've
left customs and their destination airport to wrap the items in the SHYPMATE
packaging ?

Are you trying to sound like you can't think or am I just that good at solving
REALLY REALLY basic problems ?

"And the founders should not expect to ever visit home again..." ...And if
you've been to Nigeria, you'll know that the founders won't lose too much
sleep because of this.

" they'll get arrested when they step off the plane."...if their operation is
so big that the Nigerian authorities are aware of who they are, the founders
won't be arrested, customs agents will just ask for bribes. It's as simple as
that.

To anyone reading this, if you've never been to Nigeria, don't have family
living in Nigeria or aren't from the 3rd world, please save yourself the
embarrassment of proving why America's educational system graduates its
student to college at least 2 or 3 years later than Nigeria's
([http://www.nairaland.com/12959/how-does-nigerian-
education-w...](http://www.nairaland.com/12959/how-does-nigerian-education-
work#361597)) by not commenting on this post.

:)

------
sithadmin
From the FAQ:

>When you reach your travel destination, the shopper will come pick up the
product from the Airport and we will pay you (the traveler) as soon as the
shopper receives and confirms that they have the product.

This seems like it introduces a lot of risk for the traveler. What happens if
the shopper receives an item, but doesn't confirm it with Shypmate?

Further, as somebody that travels internationally fairly often, I'm not sure
I'd be willing to do this. How are import/customs duties and declaration of
goods handled? I can't find any information on the site. Further, given that
this more or less looks like a scheme to skirt normal channels for importation
of goods, what's going to stop the local customs authorities in Ghana or
Nigeria from detaining travelers for participating in (what appears to be,
though may not actually be) an illegal imports business?

~~~
kwadwon
We do ask the shopper to confirm receipt of the item but we also do follow up
with the traveler. In future we may have the traveler take a photo documenting
delivery of the item so that a shopper who has received an item doesn't deny
that that they have in fact received it.

That is a very valid question and one we are currently working on coming up
with a good solution for. The fee for duties is something we'd include in the
shopper's fee but there are many cases that we'd expect to have to take on
that cost initially as we iterate and refine the process. There are many
questions still to be answered but we are looking to work with local
authorities in Ghana and Nigeria as well.

~~~
kosich
Here is an idea on how to make sure the receiver doesn't deny receiving the
item. 1\. Add a barcode to the packaged item 2\. The receiver has to scan the
barcode using your mobile app before the traveler hands over the package. Your
app will then display a passcode that the traver recognizes.

This ensures that you are certain that the receiver is who they claim to be
and also that they received the item.

~~~
kwadwon
Thanks for the suggestion. This is definitely something we have in the
pipeline. One of the constraints we are dealing with is that often people will
turn of their phones when they travel internationally. We do get a local
(international) number to contact the travelers but a good number of those
phones don't have scanning capability. An alternative is to have the shopper
enter a code via sms. The traveler then gets a confirmation that validates the
shopper is who they say they are and it also confirms to us that the shopper
picked up the package (the traveler would not know this code).

------
sundvor
It all sounds good until someone finds a way to sneak some drugs into one of
the packages ... tends to work out poorly for the smugglers in a lot of
countries.

------
teraflop
Interestingly, this is not even the first smuggling business that Y Combinator
has funded: [http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/13/backpack-connects-you-
with-...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/13/backpack-connects-you-with-
travelers-so-you-can-purchase-items-in-other-countries/)

------
seanccox
You may consider trying this with Turkey, as well. Informally, friends and
family do this kind of thing pretty regularly, and it was also common practice
among colleagues at my company's Istanbul office.

Though it obviously doesn't offer the protections of a more formal
arrangement, there is a Facebook group now to support connecting people –
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/417504741672236/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/417504741672236/)

~~~
amazon_not
Is Turkey any more lenient on smugglers than Ghana or Nigeria?

~~~
seanccox
I really don't know, but I understood that this business wasn't about
smuggling, just transporting expensive or difficult-to-get items. Smuggling
implies contraband, which by its nature is probably something tourists and
travelers won't dabble with, so if the business model is built around
smuggling, then I imagine it is dangerous anywhere.

~~~
DanBC
> Smuggling implies contraband

Smuggling to me implies stuff that people haven't paid tax on. Not just stuff
that's illegal to own.

Here's a radio programme using court records from the 18th Century to explore
history. This episode is about smuggling.

> Smuggling was a trade in the 18th century - sprawling from the brutal
> criminal underworld, to shops, to chic drawing rooms - brandy, tobacco,
> pepper, lace, French silks. But one commodity above all was worth killing
> for and facing the noose - tea.

> In fact two thirds of the tea which was drunk in Britain was smuggled in
> along the Southern coastline of Britain. Every single inhabitant of coastal
> ports like Rye would have known what was going on, probably most were drawn
> into it - and many ended up in the Old Bailey in London.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04d4sbs](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04d4sbs)

~~~
seanccox
I really have no idea... IANAL. I merely wanted to suggest that the founders
could look at something similar in Turkey, where the business model they are
implementing is being accomplished via an informal channel on Facebook. I
leave it up to them to figure out the details and identify the possible
consequences for their clients. In 10 years of travel between into and out of
Turkey, I never once had my bag checked on arrival, so I don't really consider
their customs process to be rigorous.

------
minimaxir
Normally I wouldn't note a startup's name for being similar to others.

But Shypmate, in the same industry as Shyp _and_ Postmates (personal
couriers), might receive some objection.

------
nappy
What has led to this opportunity in the first place? Restated: what's broken
about shipping goods to Ghana and Nigeria currently that leads to high prices
from the status quo shipping companies? What is the single biggest factor
leading to high shipping costs?

------
amazon_not
How do you handle credit card / PayPal fraud? When I think about it, this is
about the best cash out service I can think of. Carders and phishers are going
to love you. The goods are going to be out of the country long before anybody
notices any fraudulent charges on their accounts. Guess who is going to be
left holding the bag?

EDIT: I hope your OPSEC is top notch. Your platform is going to be such a
jummy target to all miscreants. Imagine what fun they could have if they had
unrestricted access to your backend.

