

Ask HN: Anyone working with physical products and shipping logistics?  - j2bax

Full disclosure: I'm a hustler...<p>Just wondering if there are many people here working on an MVP that has physical products that will need to be shipped and how that has played into costs and feasibility of your business.<p>I'm currently working through a primarily B2B concept that will have a heavy shipping component and I'm wondering if there are any good resources for learning about how to minimize costs and time as I'm getting going. Also just interested to hear of others failures and successes when dealing with physical products.
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route3
Launched my first physical product business last week: Hoppy Press [0].

I'm not shipping heavy components (opposite, actually: 12.5 ounces/~350g) so I
don't have much advice for you on that front. I would like to share one lesson
that I learned so far: the costs of shipping the actual shipping/packaging
supplies was a bit more than I estimated. 40lbs of Kraft paper doesn't ship
free.

Right now we are only offering USPS for shipping. We looked in to Amazon
Fulfillment which is priced appropriately and would be good for a "hands off"
approach. However, we like being able to include hand written notes and other
gestures when we ship to our early customers.

Good luck!

[0] <https://hoppypress.com>

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j2bax
Sorry about that, I shouldn't have used the word 'heavy' figuratively when
speaking of shipping. The items I will ship are in most cases going to be sub
1lb after packaging. Comparing prices between USPS and UPS, 1 Day shipping
from the Northwest to Midwest on a 1lb 8x6x3 package cost about $70.00 through
UPS while its in the mid $30's through USPS. Just wish USPS had a better
tracking system. But I suppose that's part of what you are paying for with
UPS!

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redfalcon6
Check out places like <http://www.shipwire.com/> and <http://www.owd.com/>

I've used both in some ecommerce experiments. Shipwire is more remote control,
while OWD has real people you can talk to.

I prefer OWD for a couple hundred bucks a month and they do everything for
you, and integrate with many shopping carts including Magento for completely
hands off experience.

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staunch
No answers yet so I'll give you my limited knowledge: Easy enough to setup a
UPS account and start shipping. Moving big things around via freight is cheap.
Amazon has a fulfillment service that will work in some scenarios.
</experience>

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j2bax
Thanks for the answer! I know I didn't give many details... And I suspect it
may not get much easier than setting up a UPS account and just going for it.
One slight concern that I have right now is shipping cost, as my product would
in most cases require quick 1,2, or 3 day shipping. When comparing UPS to USPS
the price difference is quite large with UPS costing quite a lot more. That
said, I much prefer UPS based on their tracking capabilities. I think I may go
with an option that customers can choose their carrier so that they know I'm
not gauging on shipping.

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freshfey
Check out Andrew's stuff on <http://www.ecommercefuel.com/> \- very valuable
information here.

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j2bax
Thank you! This is a great resource. Already reading through some of the
articles and I plan on reading his book.

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ssylee
Have you referred to the case studies in the 4 Hour Workweek or $100 Startup?
Email me at stanley at sysil dot com if you still like to chat.

