I do know that with many courier services the buyer/seller can indeed hold the driver/delivery service accountable for damages. I would check on that. FedEx, UPS, USPS all insure this out separately.
When I sell items I do not expect to pay anything for shipping. Shipping costs are almost always paid by the buyer. It might be hard to educate sellers to include that fee, at a high enough level that it would make it worth your while. It could work, but that will be an obstacle.
Is life support knowledge for a 2 hour transit really an issue for most people? If I wanted to send a coral via uber I could bag it and send it in a $3 thermos.
Personally, I have only been in the hobby for 21 years now but I have never shown up to buy a fish or coral from a person and them not had a bag for the fish, or a bag/tubberware/bucket for a coral.
I don't want to be a downer at all, but these are going to be the points you have to overcome. Personally it just doesn't seem that lucrative.
I think there might be more money in stuff like this if you had a service that tore down and re setup established systems that are for sale. If you were able to move a 100g tank across town for someone that seems to be more of a need and something you could charge a premium for. Otherwise if you are just moving a fish/coral from Torrance to Palm Springs, I don't think you will be able to compete on price with companies like Uber, FedEx etc.
JMO. Hope that helps.
Again, thank you for the comments. I believe I have read them carefully. I appreciate the time you have taken to reply.
Assuming that I don't have the capacity to break down tanks and transport them at this time, which I didn't say was out of the question, but would require a team of people, most likely and become a very expensive concept for either party reaching over the $1000 mark per tank (2-3 people for a days work to tear down a tank and move it, then set it back up again) I think very few tanks that are sold are going to meet that demand. And if they are there are some great service companies that would do that and are already set up to do this type of thing.
You are suggesting that I would make more money if I just became a Uber driver. Are people really hiring Uber to pick up and deliver coral and fish for them? Remember that the premise here is that I have seen a myriad of threads here on this form with the question "Will you deliver?" (I have been asked that in all but one transaction I have had so far in my QT operation, so far and almost every sale thread with the quote "pickup ONLY". So if people are not willing to deliver a fish or coral and if people are not willing to pick up a fish our coral and (this is supposed to be a funny joke, please laugh) we don't have a matter/antimatter site to site transporter, yet, how are people buying and selling fish and coral?
I don't want to drive people around as a Uber driver. I don't want to talk to them about their day. It takes effort for me to be an extrovert. I like fish and coral. I just want to drive fish and coral around. I don't want to give the Uber company a cut and have to charge more for the service. And yes, I agree, the value add for a few hours of fish and coral transport of someone that knows what they are doing is minimal, buy if you had a choice and all other factors were equal who would you choose? A random Uber driver or someone that had any experience with reefing?
As for the seller paying for shipping, I do have another "business" that makes and sells mugs on-line. MOST of the sites I sell my mugs I include FREE shipping. That does not mean that UPS and USPS provides free postage to me, it just means that on those sites I charge more for my mugs and I pay the shipping costs from the sale price. It is amazing. Etsy, E-bay, etc all recommend that sellers mark up the price of an item and include free shipping. And it works! most of the time if a person comes directly to my website and buys a mug and does calculated shipping they get a better deal, but I see time and time again the same people buying the same mug for more money on Etsy, from me, that they priced, with shipping, on my website within minutes. In fact they follow links from my website to Etsy and spend more money for the same mug, from me. Just to get FREE shipping. FREE shipping is not really FREE. It's a gimmick to get you to think that you are getting a good deal. The buyer pays no matter what.
So, the lingering questions remains:
If this type of service existed would you pay for it, either as the seller or the buyer? (It sounds like your answer is: NO.)
If you would pay for it how much would you pay? (It sounds like your answer is: No more than I would pay an Uber + $3 for a bag and rubber band)
But could you put a flat rate on the service?
Please don't worry about whether you think I will make money or if you think there is a different way to make more money. Making money is not the reason I am interested in doing this service. This is my hobby. I am exploring new ways to make it fun for me. My reward system is much different then most peoples. It is NOT money based. This thread to to judge interest, determine value and find the pitfalls, not to determine the financial viability of the service.
