On-demand shipping startup Shyp just made its service available to a much wider audience with the launch of its app on Android via the Google Play Store.
We figured that was a good opportunity to demonstrate what it’s like to use Shyp to send out a package. In the video above, we shipped a copy of Call of Duty to a TC GameCast listener. With our payment details and pickup location already entered, we only had to snap a photo and enter the final destination for the package. We could track our delivery person, which Shyp calls a “Hero,” but he was only two blocks away from our office in San Francisco.
Once the Hero showed up at the office, I just had to hand off the game. He put it in a Shyp-labeled cloth bag, scanned a QR code on it with his phone, and in moments I received confirmation that Shyp had it.
After we wrapped up our demo, Shyp CEO Kevin Gibbon stopped by to explain what happens after Shyp gets a package. Bike-based Heroes (and those in cars to get bigger objects) gather as many packages as they can fit in their bags. Once they’re full, Heroes meet up with vans that bring packages back to central locations. There, the startup weighs the packages and gets them out via the cheapest courier available. Payment doesn’t happen until Shyp confirms a package is on the way to its final destination.
Before you get too excited, Shyp is still only in San Francisco, Miami, and New York City. It’s expanding pretty rapidly at this point, however, with a launch in Los Angeles in the near future.