This Startup Wants to Pay You to Fly with Strangers' Stuff in Your Luggage Alice Truong - Quartz
go to original December 12, 2014

Unlikely competition for FedEx and UPS: travelers. (Carry.it)

Fast-growing startups Uber and Airbnb have turned idle drivers and apartment owners into on-demand chauffeurs and hoteliers. Now a new company wants to apply the peer-to-peer “sharing economy” formula to the age-old courier industry.

Indianapolis-based Carry, which launched this week, is a new take on long-distance package shipping. Instead of using FedEx, UPS, or the postal service, the marketplace matches people who need something delivered with travelers who are taking the same route. Current listings are seeking someone to take an iPhone to Mexico from Los Angeles for $350, and bring medication from London to New York for $44.

As with Airbnb, Carry is trying to take advantage of an under-utilized resource - in this case, the unused space in your suitcase. If you’re already going on a trip, it’s a potential way to defray vacation costs. And Carry is pitching itself as a cheaper alternative to express shipping.

It’s easy to spot several hurdles for this type of business, but there’s one big one: While well-funded Uber and Airbnb have dealt with their share of controversy, bad actors, and regulators, it’s hard to imagine more of a hot-button topic than air-travel security after 9/11. And it’s easy to picture nightmare scenarios, including people unwittingly carrying drugs, weapons, or other contraband.

Carry encourages travelers to inspect items before their trips - to avoid unintentionally being a drug mule, for starters - and to transport items via checked luggage, to avoid hold-ups at security. Eventually, the company plans to classify its couriers as official contract workers. Hypothetically, co-founder Peter SerVaas says, this would protect them if they unknowingly transport illegal goods, similar to how UPS or FedEx drivers aren’t liable for the contents of the packages they deliver.

(For the record, a US Transportation Security Administration representative said the agency did not have a policy that prohibited people from traveling with items that belong to others. However, anyone with contraband can be referred to law enforcement and subject to civil penalties, he noted.)

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