Shyp Picks Up Your Returns and Sends Them Back to Amazon
The most clichéd pitch in Silicon Valley at the moment is, “My app is like Uber, but for … .” Mostly, these startups are creating solutions in search of problems. But today, on-demand shipping companyShyp is launching an “Uber, but for” feature you might actually use. Push a button and Shyp will come to your door, take the stuff you ordered online, and send it back.
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Shyp launched in San Francisco last year and has attracted more than $12 million to build out its vision of logistics for the rest of us. The premise is simple. Instead of going through the headache of boxing something and hauling it to the post office or FedEx, Shyp’s app lets you take a picture of whatever you want to send. A Shyp courier arrives at your door and takes your stuff to the company’s warehouse, where packers box it up and send it out. You pay for the shipping plus a $5 fee.
The company says about 15 percent of Shyp shipments are returns of online orders. These represent a special case, because they require a return shipping label. And who has a printer anymore? In its update released today, the Shyp app will include a returns option that lets you choose from 12 major retailers, including Amazon, J.Crew, and Target. Include the order number or the shipping label that came in the box and Shyp will handle the rest.
Logistics is a hot problem in Silicon Valley. Moving stuff around quickly and cheaply is a tough math problem that promises big returns to anyone who can solve it. One of the biggest challenges is making the speed expected by Amazon Prime-d consumers pay without the scale of an Amazon.
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Shyp CEO Kevin Gibbon claims easier returns will be a boon for Amazon and other online retailers. Yes, returns cost retailers money. But if shoppers know they can more easily send stuff back, Gibbon says, they’ll order more to begin with. Right now, shoppers have two equally annoying choices for returns. Box up whatever it is you bought online, or drive the thing you bought at the mall back to the store. Make online returns easier than offline, and maybe e-commerce starts to take a bigger chunk out of brick and mortar’s share of shopping dollars. Right now, online shopping is a small but growing fraction of overall retail. Gibbon says, “We think this is a way to accelerate it.”
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