A postal revolution is on the horizon
Posted: October 19th, 2009 | Author: Jonathan | Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »Friday the 13th is a day steeped in mystery and superstition. Some people won’t leave their house, and others dare not even get out of bed. People say it’s the day when bad things happen. But we’re excited. It wouldn’t be an over-exaggeration to say that we can’t wait.
After watching the days, months and weeks fly by, we’re almost there: SendSocial is coming.
We’ve been testing our systems internally for quite a while now, and we feel we’re ready to go public. On Friday 13 November, SendSocial will launch in closed beta, before going live to the nation a few days later, on Monday 16 November.
Our recent blog silence hasn’t been because there’s been nothing to report, but quite the contrary. We’ve been so busy making the site look good and work well, agreeing partnership deals and planning world domination that it’s been hard to find time.
So here it is, the update you’ve been waiting for:
Courier partnership
We’ve been working closely with with one of the UK’s leading independent courier networks, myHermes, for a number of months now. myHermes is the consumer arm of Hermes UK, who deliver over 100 million parcels every year, and the partnership gives us national reach.
This collaboration has really brought Ben’s idea to life. myHermes will be able to read our unique, address-less delivery labels, ensuring absolute privacy for our members.
We’ve tried to simplify the postal service too. Our process is easy: as long as you know your recipient’s Twitter ID or email address, you can make a request. Once we hear back from your recipient, you simply confirm the weight of your package, make payment, print our delivery label and wait for myHermes to collect and deliver it.
When Antony first demoed this on our weekly conference call, we were all stunned at how simple and painfully easy the process was, and we’ve had the pleasure of watching an awesome process become amazing as he’s coded upgrade after upgrade, and integrated everything with Marc’s striking designs.
How we compare with Royal Mail
Not only are we easier and less time-consuming to use than Royal Mail, but we’re actually cheaper too – almost half the price in some cases. We will collect and deliver an address-less package weighing up to 2kg for £3.99. At the same weight, Royal Mail will charge you £4.41 for a delivery-only service.
We don’t strike either. Royal Mail already have a backlog of over 30 million items: not a good thing in the run up to Christmas and the busiest postal period of the whole year. Working with myHermes means that we won’t be affected by Royal Mail strike action, and will be able to stick to our 3-5 day delivery period regardless of what the unions decide to do.
Not just on Twitter
When we began working on SendSocial, the intention was to use Twitter as our medium, but we’ll be launching with email too. Email is a universal thing, and we’re confident that it will widen our appeal from the word ‘go’.
I hope this update has given you a taste of what’s to come. We’re counting down the days to launch with excitement. If you’re superstitious, there’s no need to worry – myHermes will collect from your door, so you can experience SendSocial from the comfort (and safety) of your own home.
Jonathan (@groob)
Friday the 13th is a day steeped in mystery and superstition. Some people won’t leave their house, and others dare not even get out of bed. People say it’s the day when bad things happen. But we’re excited. It wouldn’t be an over-exaggeration to say that we can’t wait.
After watching the days, months and weeks fly by, we’re almost there: SendSocial is coming.
We’ve been testing our systems internally for quite a while now, and we feel we’re ready to go public. On Friday 13 November, SendSocial will launch in closed beta, before going live to the nation a few days later, on Monday 16 November.
Our recent blog silence hasn’t been because there’s been nothing to report, but quite the contrary. We’ve been so busy making the site look good and work well, agreeing partnership deals and planning world domination that it’s been hard to find time.
So here it is, the update you’ve been waiting for:
Courier partnership
We’ve been working closely with with one of the UK’s leading independent courier networks, myHermes, for a number of months now. myHermes is the consumer arm of Hermes UK, who deliver over 100 million parcels every year, and the partnership gives us national reach.
This collaboration has really brought Ben’s idea to life. myHermes will be able to read our unique, address-less delivery labels, ensuring absolute privacy for our members.
We’ve tried to simplify the postal service too. Our process is easy: as long as you know your recipient’s Twitter ID or email address, you can make a request. Once we hear back from your recipient, you simply confirm the weight of your package, make payment, print our delivery label and wait for myHermes to collect and deliver it.
When Antony first demoed this on our weekly conference call, we were all stunned at how simple and painfully easy the process was, and we’ve had the pleasure of watching an awesome process become amazing as he’s coded upgrade after upgrade, and integrated everything with Marc’s striking designs.
How we compare with Royal Mail
Not only are we easier and less time-consuming to use than Royal Mail, but we’re actually cheaper too – almost half the price in some cases. We will collect and deliver an address-less package weighing up to 2kg for £3.99. At the same weight, Royal Mail will charge you £4.41 for a delivery-only service.
We don’t strike either. Royal Mail already have a backlog of over 30 million items: not a good thing in the run up to Christmas and the busiest postal period of the whole year. Working with myHermes means that we won’t be affected by Royal Mail strike action, and will be able to stick to our 3-5 day delivery period regardless of what the unions decide to do.
Not just on Twitter
When we began working on SendSocial, the intention was to use Twitter as our medium, but we’ll be launching with email too. Email is a universal thing, and we’re confident that it will widen our appeal from the word ‘go’.
I hope this update has given you a taste of what’s to come. We’re counting down the days to launch with excitement. If you’re superstitious, there’s no need to worry – myHermes will collect from your door, so you can experience SendSocial from the comfort (and safety) of your own home.
Sounds really interesting. Do I as the receiver of a gift have to authorise people each time? Or can I “whitelist” certain people to always be allowed to send to me?
Tie this in with something wishlist sites and I think you’re on to a winner.
Thanks for your comment, Terence! When we launch, you will need to accept each request individually. It’s really quick, though – just a couple of clicks. You will be able to have more than one address on your account and choose where each item gets sent to as well.
In the future we’re looking to set up “rules” to automate this process. So you could build up lists of friends or colleagues and accept their requests automatically, and even set which address parcels get delivered to from different friends or friend lists!