Hacker News Reader

    First of all shipping companies are geared to service larger
    business no the piss-ant customer that does 1-2 shipments per day.
    There are automated solutions for all this stuff that makes it very
    easy. No shipping company in their right mind would change their
    workflow to make it easier to a "home" user.

I think the OP is asking for the creation of a company that does focus on "home" users, precisely because their current shipping experience is so fucked up.

    Why they heck would they.

Because there seems to be a huge demand for reasonably-priced, "home"-user oriented shipping. Dealing with the current system is a huge pain in the ass if you're not a huge company, and the OP (like me, and others, I'm sure) would be willing to pay a premium for higher quality service.

That's what businesses like PostNet and FedEx Kinko's are for. Take your package there to ship it if you don't want the hassle, or use their address to receive stuff. They will happily sign for your package and call you when it gets there.

Why is any of this a problem? Don't businesses like this exist in the UK?

But I don't want to go to FedEx Kinkos to ship a package. I live in the city and its a pain in the ass to walk 5 blocks with a couple of big packages and stand in line at a Kinkos. I want shipping a package to be as simple as receiving a package. Then, I want to be able to receive more useful information on the package's status delivered in real time to my smartphone.

Then use the USPS. You can go online and print a label complete with postage and request a package pickup. Pickup doesn't cost anything.

I've never seen one. We have the Post Office, but there's a good chance that the item is bulky, what with me wanting it sent via courier instead of just putting it in an envelope, so why should they assume that it's convenient for me to take it from my house to a store? What, you want me to pay for a taxi to your store when you guys have vans that drive around dropping off boxes all day long?

> Why is any of this a problem?

I agree. It's 2012. This can be done so much better.

"huge demand for reasonably-priced, "home"-user oriented shipping"

It doesn't matter how large the demand is if you can't do it profitably. And at the prices necessary to make money focusing on home shippers, you probably wouldn't have much demand.

>As for the courier companies, every time they have to deal with a bad label or anything that requires a human to step in to help process the shipment you are slowing down the production line. Watch a couple videos of a Fedex or UPS sort facility to get an appreciation of what they deal with daily.

Vouch.

I worked as a FedEx loader/unloader for a year in college. We wear these cool wrist-mount computers with scanner rings to inventory the packages. A smudge, tear, wrinkle, or glossy tape can make reading the barcode a pain. When that happens you have to set the package aside, key in the numbers by hand, confirm the info, and then you can load it. Oh, and this is all while you are getting swamped with about 1 package every 3 seconds that might also need to go through this process.

As another poster points out, I was advocating the creation of a better shipping company for human beings, not for companies who are addicted to the margins they make on shipping a gajillion parcels a year where they know the weight to a zillion decimal places so they can make a penny more on fuel costs.