alt Hacker NewsThe bigger problem is that being a casual package courier is not worth the hassle.
Let’s say someone doesn’t want to pay FedEx $70 to ship a box next-day from San Francisco to Portland, so OP arranges for you to do it and charges $35, takes $10 off the top and pays you $25. Now you are supposed to drive to random person’s house to pick up the package, carry it across state lines, and drop it off at someone else’s house. You have to deal with potential flakes on both sides of this transaction and risk of carrying who knows what the whole time. For $25.
Would you agree to do this job? And if not, would you trust your package with someone who would?
> Would you agree to do this job? And if not, would you trust your package with someone who would?
You're absolutely right BUT I do want to point out a situation where the answer is "Yes" because the model is entirely different.
Last mile delivery is expensive because it does't enjoy the economies of scale.
I'm increasingly seeing increasing number of random personal vehicles drop off my retail packages that were shipped via UPS/FedEx to a central hub. I don't understand why these retailers even do this - these items are like $1-$10 and part of a much larger order that arrive in a staggered fashion. I would imagine people pay more than the item in just gas so it's likely a customer satisfaction thing.
I imagine either the retailer or UPS/FedEx indemnifies these people if and when things go wrong so these people have the backing of a multibillion dollar logistics company. Perhaps the OP could look into this portion of delivery? The OP is really light on location and painpoints to ave a real concrete conversation.