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Friday, July 18, 2008

Making money developing an efficient way to ship products

More and more people are buying things on the internet everyday and of course these items need to be shipped. Sometimes the cost of shipping can be prohibitive and influence buying decisions. There’s a company uship.com that offers an auction style way to ship larger goods around the country. It’s an idea that can save users thousands of dollars if shipping large enough items.

The company was founded in 2001 when the CEO and Co-founder Matt Chasen planned a move from Seattle to Austin. Around the same time period, Matt’s mom had been trying for months to ship a family heirloom dresser from Ohio to Texas. The prices she received from traditional freight companies were too expensive to justify shipping it the distance.

When Matt was ready to move, he rented a 9 foot van. The truck rental company “upgraded” him to a 20 foot truck because they were out of 9 foot trucks. Due to his experience of hauling items in a mostly empty truck, he wondered if there was another truck in Ohio with enough room to bring home his mother's dresser.

Matt was determined to make use of these empty vehicles and develop an efficiency to make shipping more affordable. He began to develop a business plan once he got to Texas, and started the company with two others, Mickey Millsap and Jay Manickam.

The company was started in January 2003, and has thousands of users.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great ideas often come out of everyday little problems. It's all about initiative, business plan and getting the best people to work with you.

t said...

Maybe if my ebay store takes off I will look into this. Right now I'm just trying to get used to the USPS, it can get so complicated.