I have looked at your competitors as well. Except for one all of them make this assumption. I guess customers with multi package shipments are not your target clients.
We have multi package shipments in beta. Here's the gist: https://gist.github.com/sbeidas/0c3e1364abc077543996f97f9aa7... It's live and in prod but beta. Let me know if there's feedback
I still think Shippo has a long way to go, but they're doing great work and are very responsive to new ideas.
Relevant - I want an API for a cleaning service. AirBnB integration so that it can automatically track when a guest has left and the cleaner shows up within an hour to get it ready for the next guest. Would build if I didn't have so many projects going on already...
I'm curious though--will small business owners bother to implement this in their website, or isn't it easier for someone else (Uber, or its competitor) to do it for them?
As far as retail stores are concerned, they make an API call to a supplier, and product shows up.
Granted, it's a pretty convoluted API, but I don't think it's too difficult to imagine what a supply chain algorithm would look like. Just lots of exception handling + long timeouts...
EDI is more standardized data formats than API (though the fact that it often standardizes request and response formats and the relation between them makes it close to an API in some requests), and EDI goes a lot beyond manufacturing and supply chain management.
(In US healthcare financial transactions, specifically, the combination of EDI transaction specifications + standard operating rules mandated under the HIPAA is, basically, a standardized API, if not called that.)
Edit - I see what you mean now, more companies will make physical service API's
Second, there are several restrictions on what can be delivered via UberRUSH:
- People or animals of any size
- Alcohol (or any other goods that require identification)
- Illegal items
- Dangerous items (weapons, explosives, flammable, etc.)
- Stolen goods
- Any items for which you do not have permission to send.
- Couriers reserve the right to refuse delivery of any item.
I work on the Uber Developer Platform team and am happy to answer additional questions, though suggest checking out our FAQ first:
Could be argued that they fall under Dangerous items, but if you look at USPS, they've seen it all and get pretty specific.
(Though naturally the bigger players there might not like sharing access to their platform like that.)
If Uber is able to integrate with other apps this introduces a high switching cost for those apps... and that gives them a pretty solid moat. Excited to see how this API gets used.
Their moat is their crap load of drivers.
That's my interpretation anyway! I've never heard 'weak moat' used in this context before though. Apologies if you actually know what a moat is and that all sounded rather patronising :/
Uber will be a company to watch in the coming years.
In city areas it is possible to make up to 8 deliveries per hour.
In suburban areas it is possible to make up to 4 deliveries per hour.
In rural areas it is possible to make up to 2 deliveries per hour.
If you assume about $14/8 that's about $1.5 cost during prime times.
>docs-598c00d615.js:1 Uncaught RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded
on the console
I've actually been thinking of starting a similar venture in Tunisia. Over here, there is simply no straightforward way to deliver packages within a city. Obviously I don't have the platform Uber has, so I'm thinking of building both at the same time, but with a focus on package delivery for individuals or small businesses.
What I'm worried about the most is package insurance. How is this usually done? Do I need to setup a policy with an insurance company? Or can I just mention in the ToS something like "we are not responsible for the condition of the received package"?
Any input on this or any other potential hurdles would be appreciated.
Well, in that they have lots of other services, sure, but FedEx does have both long-distance (FedEx SameDay) and shorter-time-window local (FedEx SameDay City) same-day services.
The main difference would be that FedEx isn't subsidizing rates with investor money to fuel growth, so its more expensive.
Doesn't really matter, but you could see a need for an "equipment and stuff" on demand in an hour type of service catering to these events.
Similarly, every wedding venue can have an "emergency" service for missing stuff ("Florist flaked? We can put petals to the metal and have them there in an hour!")
These are perhaps more extreme, but I'm sure there are any number of restaurants in your area that don't deliver, but might like to have that capability. One morning last week I went to my local bagel shop to find the manager loading dozens of boxes of bagels into her car (catering for the local school's Teacher Appreciation Day). There is insufficient demand for the bagel shop to have a full time delivery driver, but big catering orders UberRush might really fill a need for them.
https://developer.uber.com/docs/rush
I'm curious how you might compare them to FedEx's docs?
As an example, the developer document solely for obtaining shipment rates is 98 pages long.
FedEx SameDay City Priority seems to guarantee delivery within 2 hours from package ready time within the shortest (0-15 mile) delivery range, and its available in a lot more cities than UberRUSH.
As this is a service intended for people with no existing logistics infrastructure, this seems to be firmly in line with the uber policy of reminding everyone why rules are created in the first place...
So the drivers are not a party to the transaction? Is Uber still trying to claim they are "independent contractors"?
I'm not seeing that information in the documentation. Or does UBER want us to get clients for them for free?
The benefit of using the UberRUSH API is that you can take advantage of the elasticity of Uber's fleet to scale up and scale down delivery services on demand without needing to build up or manage your own couriers.
We think of it similar to how developers use AWS: developers could run their own server infrastructure but their costs would be much higher on a per-unit basis because they don't have the scale or purchasing power that Amazon has. Furthermore, running servers and dealing with amortization and depreciation probably isn't good for their businesses (unless their businesses are in scalable server hosting!).
We hope that developers use the UberRUSH API to lower the costs of running businesses that need to move physical goods in cities where we operate; we know full well the costs and challenges of setting up an elastic logistics network (it's our core business) and are passing on those capabilities and cost savings to third parties so they can focus on the value that they're providing, rather than merely on how to fulfill requests.
Is there a list of allowed deliverable items?
I still can't use this API to ship something to another town, can I?
UberRUSH is focused on courier-style deliveries within a single urban environment; you can not use UberRUSH for long distance deliveries.
Same-day delivery's already provided pretty economically by the regional carriers (think Ontrac), but it's never been a huge market.
