Red Roller, another company trying to make a web service out of a somewhat low-tech industry, launched last week at eBay’s conference in Las Vegas.
The Norwalk, Connecticut-based company, which has also been in the works for over two years, has built an on-demand shipping site “designed to have the same look, feel, and function as an e-travel site,” Red Roller CEO Bill Van Wyck said.
Targeted at small businesses and eBay sellers, the site plugs in to all the major shipping carriers except UPS. It’s a more full-featured version of bubble-era company iShip—which after being bought by Stamps.com and UPS, is still alive today, but in a fairly dormant state.
After customers enter shipping, departure, and destination information as well as packaging and weight information, Red Roller delivers price comparison, then processes payment and formats labels for printing.
The 35-employee company, which has raised “several million dollars” from individual investors, plans to earn a cut on some of the shipping deals, as well as sell advertising, boxes, labels, and tape.
Mr. Van Wyck said increased competition between parcel delivery companies has opened up the opportunity to make price estimates more competitive. Enterprise-grade shipping-price comparison software has been around for 15-plus years, he admitted, but generally as part of expensive warehouse management systems that are only feasible for large companies.
Red Roller also plans to sell its service to third-party sites. JupiterResearch has found that 63 percent of online shopping carts are abandoned, and Mr. Van Wyck reasons that increased transparency about shipping prices, often a frustration for consumers, would decrease that figure.
“Businesses that ship frequently are going to have established shipper relationships,” said Mr. Sterling, noting that a small price savings probably won’t be enough to check Red Roller.
Red Roller is one of the more useful eBay tools to come out in quite some time. Look for it to be gobbled up by one of the eBay auction management companies once it builds significant traffic.
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