Written a week ago:

I had a down day today. Managing this whole eBay thing has started to wear on me as I move past the honeymoon phase and learn some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of being a seller. It started off great – listing and selling items was exciting and mailing out packages was fun. But now that I’ve sent out dozens of items, I find it increasingly challenging to manage inventory, get the right shipping products (particularly appropriate box sizes), and find a good balance between price and shipping speed/service.

Mostly it has to do with shipping woes. For the second time now, someone has contacted me saying they have not received their item after waiting nearly a month. In cases like this, I am so powerless yet I feel responsible. I want to help but should I have to replace or refund an item every time the post office or customs screws me over? While I appreciate the low prices I get with USPS, I feel like there’s no accountability for when items are lost, damaged, or stolen. I have no recourse and it is disheartening.

In a similar vein, I have no idea what customs offices might be doing with my shipments… are they holding them? Did they never receive them? Will my customer get their package soon, or at all? It’s so frustrating to not know and not be able to provide any comfort to the recipient patiently waiting for the delivery.  Additionally, I constantly worry about how much abuse my packages will suffer after finding out some of my items were crushed in transit.  How do I ensure that the items are well-protected yet don’t add so much weight to the packaging that shipping costs go up?  It’s a fine line to walk.

Now, with some time to think:

All of this has led me to an old idea I had a long time ago – wouldn’t it be nice to “rent” space in a suitcase or car that will be traveling from somewhere near you to a destination close to the one you want?  People are constantly covering so much ground and not taking advantage of all the space they have to bring things with them.  If we could tap into a network where travelers can offer up the extra space they have and shippers/mailers can then pay for that space, wouldn’t that be a great way to take advantage of the travel that’s already being done?  With the rise of community marketplaces, this seems more and more a sensible reality for the future.  If I can trust the listings on Airbnb, I can certainly find a way to create a similar level of trust for listings involving assisted shipping.

Granted, there are plenty of challenges to consider, especially when it comes to international shipping, but this is a problem I’d really like to help solve.  I can just imagine the powerful community that can be created around this, and with it a built-in level of service unlike that of many shipping services.  After all, each person signing up to help deliver items wants to maintain a pristine reputation or else they won’t get more opportunities to earn money.  We’d need to integrate some technologies to assist them in the tracking process, among other things, but I wonder if overall it’d be worth all the effort.  Would I really be able to drive down the price, yet provide optimal service?  I’d sure like to try.