So the idea is simple we are now starting to have online identities but sometimes we want to interact with those online identities in the real world.....for instance if i fancy a twitterer I may want to send her a valentines gifty in the real world - but I am not going to ask her for her address as the twitter relationships are genreally very weak....
So the idea is simple - if you want to send something to a twitter or email or other scocial network user and you dont want to ask them for their address you come to our site and the following is the process:
You come to the site enter your identity and whether you want to remain anonymous or not(we still need to know who they are for safty)
The person is then sent a twitter or email asking them to confirm if they want to accept the package
If they accept they enter their address
The sender is informed and payment infomation entered
The sender sends us the package
We send it to the recipient
So no address or identity are ever disclosed to the other party, you would make a stright 10% on the re-shipping costs to the end user.
The disadvantage is that obvously you have to pay two shipping costs but thats the cost of privicy.
I can see this working for users wanting to say thank you, or maybe companies wanting to send bloggers real products.
Looking for feedback - it could be done very easily - We can do the US and UK on day one as I have two locations for shipping we could use.
I am not looking to do this myself I would just like to put it together.
If its shit idea tell me if not help me!
46 comments:
Anonymous transactions would be slightly more expensive and we would open the package and check it for security.
http://www.givereal.com/
An open API would be available directly to ecommerce providers
Interesting idea - as you say, an open API would permit any eCommerce enabled retailer to potentially drop-ship via the scheme.
Wouldn't be adverse to integrating something like this into our (fledgeling) eCommerce platform (API calls to list products, take orders etc).
It's a neat idea, but I don't see there being enough demand for it to make it worthwhile - unless it was as an add-on/incidental (dare I say gimmicky?) type service to an existing online retaler
I dont know just look at http://www.givereal.com/ and www.parcelpoke.com you would not need much to start up and running costs would be very very low
why not just skip the twitter idea and offer an intergrated service for retailers- nice constant stream of custom. instead of having costly staff twitter messages back and forth
The twitter bit is just a plug in - the whole system would be compleatly automated apart from the shipping bit, could be intergrated for retailers or anybody really - you know me I like my open source API's just look at viapost
One of these ideas that make you wonder why no-one seems to have thought of it before. It might take off. Downsides might include (a) limited circumstances in which people would want to send gifts anonymously - except to charity and that's already possible, and (b) possible murky/grey issues regarding 'plausibly deniable' corrupt 'gifts'....
Good points - but almost all services can be abused - you can send money via Weston union and that gets abused all the time....
As for the number of times people would use it, that is a BIG unknown, but it would be so low cost to operate that you could probably operate it @ very low capacity....also the trend is getting away from sharing physical address between people...I cant remember the last time I knew my girlfriends address
It wouldn't be too difficult to uncover the recipient's address. For example, what's stopping someone from using the service to send a GPS enabled (e.g. Google Latitude) mobile phone?
Great comment I had a similar thought, I think again for Anonymous you would have to check the package - however no system is ever 100% infallible - our society could not operate if it was.....I believe you have to use your best endevours to protect people...but with enough effort and time you can find out anybodys details
Retailers need to know the postal address anyway for payment authorisation...
I can't imagine it being "massive" but I'd reckon it has enough legs to be worth a shot.
One issue:
"The person is then sent a twitter or email asking them to confirm if they want to accept the package"
In your scenario you fancy a twitterer, but twitter is too open / insecure for this type of transaction, in terms of getting them to accept it. In which case you need their e-mail address - which you would mail the acceptance link to...
If you have their e-mail address, and they are likely to accept the package, why wouldn't they give you their address? I guess there would be something vaguely fun / exciting about retaining anonymity...
Topically, for these sorts of ideas, I loved what Joel Spolsky recently said on one of the SO podcasts (https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W25795):
"If you explain it, and everyone says "Oh yeah, that would work, I'm surprised that's not being done" - then it is being done. However, if you explain it and they say "That wouldn't work, because of blah. It could never possibly work, you could never have auctions on the Internet because people are untrustworthy and they will use it to steal your money by pretending to sell you a laptop and not sending you the laptop, so you can't have auctions on the web." But as it turns out you can have auctions on the web. Or whatever the idea it, it has to have a fatal flaw at first glance and it has to sound like a terrible idea and you have to believe in it for some reason which you just have trouble explaining to anyone except your brother-in-law who joins you in your startup or your college roommate who doesn't really get it, because you do need someone to join you, but the idea has to be not obvious and it has to sound bad - otherwise it's getting done."
I disagree that the whole thing could not be done through twitter or face book or any social network, It would work like this :
User submits request and enters twitters twitter address
The system keeps twittering that user for example:
@benpbway you have a physical package please accept, to accept follow @xxxx
As soon as the system sees @benpbway follow it sends a DM to @benpbway with a unique web code
When they load the page they see the details and the sender(if not anonymous) and can accept or decline.
Its that simple and completely automated
But surely you need "@xxxx" to be at least relatively safe or any random could follow that link?
Imagine you are sending something to me, you would give socialsend.com my twitter username.
Socialsend would send out the following twitter that everybody can see:
@benpbway you have a physical package please accept, to accept follow @Socialsend
As soon as our software sees that @benpbway has followed @Socialsend it sends a DM to @benpbway with the unique code to the webpage to claim the package. Because it is a DM nobody else can see the unique code apart from @benpbway
toally secure - unless i have missed something?
Yep, that makes sense now. Sorry, missed the follow step before.
Not totally secure, of course(!), but as good as most e-mail I should think.
Reckon it's a pretty good idea myself. Try and get it launched before valentines day next year for a good publicity boost. :)
Ask 20 women you know, if they would do this. If 40% say yes, then go for it. If they don't... well.
Nice Idea Ben, could you use Viapost to make it work? other thoughts are: I dont think I've ever sent anything Anonymously, either personal or business; what would happen if it was 'undelivered'?
Danny great to hear from you!!! I suppose it would be returned to sender(i.e. us) and we would first try and get in contact with the receiver and then the sender
as a woman, I think it sounds like a great idea... what about Canada though?
It may have some potential, Ben, but I'm inclined to agree about levels of demand. People are pretty creative when they want to find someone these days, so I reckon the really persistent would still find a way to send someone flowers, etc, more directly.
Actually, it never ceases to amaze me how lazy some people are even when they do have your real address. They'll still send an e-card instead of a real one, and Facebook flowers instead of the real thing. So not sure adding an extra level would encourage people to be more romantic, especially in these frugal times. Hoping I'm wrong, of course!
You'd need to manage a pretty good opt-out service. Personally I think it would be a bit creepy receiving gifts from "anonymous". A valentine's card is one thing but random gifts popping up through the year would be weird / disturbing.
I think it's all about ease. If it's really easy to do, then people will use it. Some thoughts:
* freepost intermediate address, roll the cost of that into the reshipping margin. (Or if this isn't possible for some countries/types of parcel/whatever, look at printed authorisations or similar.)
* following a service on twitter is a high emotional barrier (it's basically signing in to spam), and recipients aren't yet customers of the service at that point. However there are ways that are lower emotional cost but preserve the security and should still work.
* it feels like there's a problem in the gap between sender informing the intermediate that they want to send to recipient and recipient providing delivery details. If, say, you wanted to send a Valentine's gift, a potential delay here would see the gift downgraded from something highly thoughtful to something rushed to meet the post deadline. A larger delay and it would become impossible. This is perhaps the largest limiting factor that I can see in the idea.
Ben, if you wanted to meet up sometime it could be fun to hammer through this on a whiteboard and see what comes out.
On behalf of a friend (a follow entrepreneur), Matt Shearn:
Not convinced of the service that Ben is suggesting since I can see it will be taken over by companies that want to post junk (just like the flyers that never stop coming through the letter box).
The temptation will be to accept the gift to see what it is (even though the description in the email notification suggest it is worthy of acceptance it may turnout to be junk). So we will be producing more tat and consuming the world resources at an ever faster rate to mail people junk, or is that just me being pessimistic?
Might also cause some embarrassment to people in public office, or any position come to that, if they accept gifts that they don't know who they are from (field day for the tabloids on politicians!)
Most people would accept a Rolex but would wish they hadn't when they found out where it really came from. Lots of issues such as tax implications ('gifts-in-kind') and contravening contract or company policy (just because it's received at your home address doesn't mean it wasn't meant to be a bribe by the sender).
Maybe partner with http://twesents.com/ to send 'real' gifts instead of virtual ones?
Hey Matt,
I really think it is unlikely to be used as a junk mail system, the reason it it would not be is it is a hugely expensive way to send out this type of material, however I can see it being used as a product tester type service where say a company that produces a new gadget wants to send it to the top 100 most innfluwential twitterers. Also by the very nature of twitter using this service to spam the community would create a huge backlash within itself - you would have to be one hell of a stupid company.
Also remember that even though it would be annomynous to each user the transaction is transparent for us, we know who the user is who sends(from credit card) and who the receiver is(from the details they enter) so in terms of gifts in kind we have exactly the same information as FEDEX do.
But thanks for the thoughts!
Hey Ben,
I like the concept.
In my view for this to work you need to provide choice so you don't assume what the recipient likes. This is why gift vouchers like Amazon's and iTunes's work so well for the consumer. Commercially, they work well because people are inherently lazy and there is an element of non-redemption.
On one extreme if Kellogg's run a free theme park entry on-pack they will get around 2% redemption. On the other side, if I give you a Cinema ticket as a friend expect around 60% redemption. This is why promotion companies make so much money. Admittedly, the promotions industry has taken somewhat of a hit recently - for instance the largest promotions company in the world 'was' TLC until recently. In fact, TLC are now in administration. I digress.
The business needs to be lean so no stock and no internal logistics. Create value bands, so £5, £10, £15 and so on. Allow a consumer to visit the site and purchase the value band then allow them to choose how to dispatch the gift voucher. This might be by post (enter Viapost) or by e-mail or even by twitter or a another social-media site of their choice.
Once the despatch choice has been made send the voucher via e-mail, tweet DM etc ... The voucher should consist of a serial number, nice creative and redemption URL. The user enters the serial number into the redemption website and gets to see a whole host of gifts they can choose within their value band. Once chosen they will receive an e-mail stating their gift is being despatched to their designated address.
Going back to keeping it lean, tie each product to a supplier in the backend and give them a login to collect their orders via a CSV file every day. Of course, each gift is procured at RRP less 30%. The supplier is then responsible for providing the gift. Happy days!
As it happens, the Auto-Miles system (now being re-branded as myrewardscompany.co.uk , which is a 6 £igure web app) does all this apart from the despatch method of social media. Read here how we did it for a Plc: http://tinyurl.com/automiles . Auto Miles have around 500 products now including Odeon Cinema etc ...
If you want to partner with Auto-Miles for their system, I'm sure I'll be able to persuade the other shareholders to do it - for equity of course. My only concern is who will do the redemption creative and pay for the alternative delivery methods? IQ can do it but we're not taking on any investments for 2009 - we would only do it for cash. If you can get someone to put-up the money for the integration and creative I'll put up the Auto Miles system.
Ordinarily I'd make this proposal via e-mail or next time I saw you but in the spirit of entertainment and education I thought I'd do it on the blog post!
I hope you're well mate ;-)
Glen.
Agree with Glen (hello mate!) in that it needs to be lean and no stock. Otherwise you're a logistics business with a pretty website - not where you want to be. Just made some very similar decisions myself with furnish.co.uk, thanks to some good advice by some very clever bods.
But, problem is... if you remove the re-shipping element, you end up having to deal in vouchers, which I imagine also isn't where you want to be.
A possible solution to think about... any way that the sender can print out a label from your site that has a PO Box/some kind of number on it, but not an address. You then strike a deal with a courier company or similar where they process that number and deliver directly to the recipient. Hence, no re-shipping, no stock, no logistics, but you still allow people to send packages anonymously. Bingo.
Ello Simon ;-)
Dealing in vouchers (or serial codes) is nice because you set a validity period and if they don't redeem then it's extra margin on your bottom line.
I do like your idea however it relies on convincing someone to process the PO BOX parcels at a low cost. Also, you'll need to think about insurance etc ... Legal nightmare perhaps? Anyone out there who knows anyone who would provide PO BOX parcel processing at a low cost who would be willing to take care of all the legal?
Glen.
Yes Ben, I think it could work, more and more people use the internet for everything and often with new friends would like to keep some form of privacy until they know the person better. I know this from experience.
Go for it! will support ya
J
Glen and simon, I think you have missed the concept slightly.....you are talking about something like http://www.givereal.com/ which this would have aspects off, but the concept is fundamentally different, we certinally would not hold any stock and you can send whatever you want, we would work in one of two ways:
1) A user wants to send a package from their location to a user that they do not know the address for.
2) Using an open API a user can send a gift using any participating ecommerce provider.
In case 1 the package is sent to our address by the user, and we then put the recipients shipping address and fedex it to the recipient.
In case 2 we are an effectively an annomyniser for recipient address and take the affiliate commission.
Hey Ben,
In which case I don't think it will work as you're reliant on 'good' e-commerce providers to integrate with the API. Catch 22, if you do a 'Bob Geldof' and convince one large online retailer to integrate then I guess you're laughing however if I was a large online retailer I'd just take the idea and do it myself. Lets not forget that 1st to the market doesn't necessarily mean you'll stay at the top, look at the iPod - they didn't invent the 1st mp3 player.
The other problem you'll have is 'most' online retailers give away really pathetic commissions for stuff like this. That said, if you get stupidly large volumes it isn't an issue.
Hmmmmmmm ... Ponderous
Glen.
But I still think your missing the point, the API is not really the core aspect of the product, the basic idea is that you have item A that you want to Send to user B.....the API is basically just an extra that gives us a similar revenue model as givereal?
Ben, read mine again. It does indeed allow a user to send a package from their location to another user. DIRECTLY. Yet anonymously.
You say that you're not holding stock, but you are. You're holding stock of packages between shipping. That's very bad. If the idea took off, you'd need to pay for dedicated warehouse space, etc. My suggestion gets round all of that.
Ok, it has legs perhaps but... is there not a risk that in some cases certain gifts sent could be virtually stalking, particularly those of an adult nature sent to those that really don't want to receive them. That might need considering.
Also, how about a voucher alternative to save a bit on both packaging and fuel/delivery costs to lower environmental damage? It might not be much but every bit helps doesn't it?
Also, this option creates opportunities all over for affiliate and advertising deals. Just some thoughts.
Who is responsible for lost items?
You would essentially have to open every single anonymous item for security..... it would then have to be repacked..... very time consuming I'd guess and for a high volume of packages you would need a fairly big staff as its all manual labour.
Essentially, as you are the final sender you are responsible for the package by law, regardless of any t&c you set out.
People may send illegal items.... and that could have serious ramifications for the middle man....... especially as they have unpacked and repacked the item. It put you in a difficult position.
The sender would have to pay for delivery twice? For small value items, a single delivery cost can sometimes double the price. Two deliveries could triple the sender's costs.
Once the item actually arrives after going through the postal system twice..... (this will take a week at least - unless you pay for next day prices)....... the actual impetus for sending the gift may be redundant so the timing of this system is prohibitive really for any topical or jokey gifts.
Also....... with this whole RT for 10% thing..... the more people that RT.... the more shareholders there are in that 10% bracket. There is therefore little impetus to spread the word.... because everytime you do and a new person RT's....... your shares are diluted!!!
Simon, sorry I see what your saying now; I think you could be right a unique tracking number that the courier knows would do it...but this would not work for the annomyimous stuff that we would need to check first - But your right your idea would get rid of a step, lets add it too the mix!!!
Anonymous - I suppose we would need some kind of insurance - probably would be part of the FEDEX service anyway.
You would be an idiot to send illiagle items through this seeings as we have as much infomation on you as a normal courier AND we check the contents....I am not sure of the legal issues but I would find it very hard to believe an extra level of checking would cause a legal liability....but I could be wrong!
As for the RT thing it depends on your views, you have to RT to get the shares once you have RT then the secuss of the product is partly dependent on how big this things gets, so there are incentives and disentives, but thats what is fun about this it is an intresting experiment!
Cheers, Ben. I still don't see why you'd need to check anything. When the user is on the site, just ask them to enter a description of the package. Or get them to select from an 'allowed' list or answer some questions.
Yes, there's a risk they may lie on their selection, but you have their address and credit cards details. Get some good Ts&Cs and stick an explicit checkbox on form submission that requires them to confirm that their description of the package is accurate. Maybe suggest that items that don't conform to the description may be reported to the police and/or incur a substantial additional charge.
Basically, this isn't your problem. What do others do? Ebay doesn't intercept every item to check it's legal/decent. The responsibility is on the sender to ensure it is.
I think you need to remove the whole handling packages part of the business if it's going to work.
Ben, this is a good idea but needs fleshing out a bit. I also think it's got other interesting avenues. We are in the process of finishing a site that would be quite a good fit. We should have a chat. @mistersmeetme
Interesting...this topic came up at porter novelli 'everything twitter' conference the other day. Try contacting Gillette as one of the speakers @whatleydede specifically mentioned this type of idea to them!
From a girlie point of view having an allowed list does sound better to me,as what would happen if when the package was checked it was something obscene (unless thats what the person receiving the present wanted)which wasn't as the description stated?
Ben, sounds a great idea. Some thoughts.
Sender registers with sendsocial.com; poss' registration fee (private / commercial). Private user can send maybe 1 or 2 free items per membership period? Fee eliminates hoax users and extra revenue stream.
Sender tweets Recipient. I want to send you gift. Recipient follows @sendsocial to accept.
Poss'opportunity for ad revenue on sendsocial site.
sendsocial system confirms recipient acceptance. Generates unique reference and makes available to sender. Payment of item levy & post. customs / post declaration taken. Confirm T&Cs
Sender puts unique reference on package and either delivers it to dropbox or courier company picks it up. Real Address is added to package. Poss tie-in with courier co. and/ or physical retailer e.g. Staples / WH Smith etc? (Distribution between stores e.g. drop off item in WHS in Cardiff and pickup from WHS in Coventry?)
Courier delivers package. Courier system interfaces with sendsocial system to confirm delivery. Sendsocial then tweets recipient to get feedback a la ebay.
As I said earlier, just some thoughts that you might find useful or feel inclined to toss to the four winds!!
A good idea but my questions / issues are:
1. I can't think of any / many times when I would have wanted to send something to somebody who's physical address I didn't have, so it wouldn't make much money out of me.
2. So the sender pays for shipping cost to @Socialsend plus 110% of reshipping cost on to recipient (using Fedex). Unless you strike a great deal with Fedex it is going to be more expensive than using Royal Mail. But let's be generous and assume the sender ends up paying 210% of what they would have done had they sent directly themselves using Royal Mail. This is starting to sound expensive.
Or maybe I've misunderstood?
Tim
hello there Benjamin, what if i have no computerrelated problem, but a societyproblem, do you look at these too? i hope so, because in my country they don't look at it... Some organisations have a tunnelvision, it is very scary...
After long thought, I realise I don't know what to say about sendsocial. Present-giving is like US school massacres or clubbing or fashion; what seems creepy one year can catch-on the next year. A low-profile viable service might catch-on in ten years' time.
On a similar subject how about sendmusical? Say you benefit from a piece of music you've taped off the radio, heard, or illegally downloaded. You don't want to pay EMI but you want musicians to earn a living and would like to tip the copyright holder or some such. You donate to a web site on condition that you also give sufficient instructions for the piece of music to be found on the free databases. The platform gives 95p to the copyright holders, 5p to itself for researching how to pay all these people and be transparent, and 0p to record companies which is the best bit.
Complications arise as in Sendsocial: can you give objects? Can you give to the band if they have sold the copyright to others? Can you get help identifying who was in the band in 1969 when they played the song? And so-on but the complications only arise if the basic idea catches-on, so there's no need to worry.
Just a thought. PS I'd like to teach the world to sing.
John
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