How many addresses to you remember? If like me, you have the memory of a goldfish and tend to move house every six months you’ll find it hard enough remembering your own postcode let alone your family and friends. Launching today, SendSocial.com is aiming to solve the address issue by enabling you to send anything, anywhere without an address.
How it works is you can send an item knowing only your recipient’s Twitter ID or email address. SendSocial will send your request to the individual, and – if they choose to accept – SendSocial will take their address details from them.
You’ll then receive a notification that they’re happy to hear from you, and will be asked to confirm the collection address and pay by credit or debit card. Once this is complete, they’ll provide you with an address-less label to stick to your package, which will be collected by myHermes , our delivery partners, and delivered in 3-5 working days.
I’m surprised this idea hasn’t been thought of before as the whole notion of having to acquire a physical address for post seems medieval to me. I seem to run out of time at the end of the year for finding postal addresses and queuing at the damn post office, so Christmas presents from me amount to a phone call and a slurring video message on friend’s Facebook walls. #badfriend
What SendSocial needs to do now is integrate with Facebook- many of my good friends from school whom send me cards and presents every year haven’t caught on to Twitter and I don’t have their email addresses, but we are Facebook friends and these are the friends that I’ll really like to send pressies to.
They also need to integrate PayPal as a payment system and also integrate direct with consumer sites- So, for example, I can purchase and send a present direct from Harrods.com without an address.
Great idea. Alternatively, I suppose people could just call or email me and ask for my address, rather than using this service?
I agree with the top comment. Although, there is a smaller second market for people who may not want to give you their home address.
The thing is though, if they’re Facebook friends of yours, they can just put their address on their profile and then you can get it from there (and they can adjust their profile settings to control who can/can’t see it) – I’d rather trust Facebook with my address than a new start-up that I don’t know at all – or preferably I’d just give it to my friend that is sending me the gift, as they’re the people I trust the most. This service is pretty redundant IMHO.
Also, if I’m sending someone a gift, the chances are, I will be ordering it from a website and having it sent directly to them. Having to get it sent to myself, then putting a label on it and arranging for collection etc. is a pain and also environmentally unfriendly/inefficient/slow. They say it takes 3 to 5 days for delivery, with no faster option, which is no good for last minute present buyers.
Sorry, I’m just not feeling it.
Hi Rodger,
Good point, although SendSocial doesn’t only take the hassle out of finding the address it also takes the hassle out of delivering it- you don’t have to find a stamp and que at the post office as Send Social will pick it up directly from your location.
Dave- I don’t know anyone that puts their address on Facebook, but in my view if you order from a site and get it sent direct you still have to go through the effort of finding their address- emailing/ringing them, waiting for response – if and when Send Social integrate with Facebook you might just be able to enter someones profile link or name and the rest is taken care of- much easier than having to find individual addresses.
I put my address on Facebook, and you know me! I do it for the same reason as I put my phone number(s) on there, and also my IM accounts, websites, e-mail addresses etc. So that people I trust can get hold of them without having to bother me.
Ideally shopping sites would just let you ‘send to a friend’ and if you don’t have the friend’s address to hand, they could e-mail the friend to get the info (just like SendSocial does). That way the address doesn’t need to be given to a third party (i.e. SendSocial). Though as someone who used to run a large online store, I know that most don’t let you send to any old address because of the risk of fraud.
A third party would have to run that process? It would be very expensive for each online shop to implement their own system for sending post without an address- why can’t Send Social be this third party?
I ran an online boutique for 4 years, and now run online boutiques for others. If you totalled up the amount of time myself and other designer makers, ebayers, etsians, folksy-ers, myehivers spent in the post office Q it would add up to a few hundred years.
You think I am joking? Look at all the PO’s in the UK that have been closed or merged with others, have you ever got to the post office when it was less that 10 person deep? It is a massive problem unless “on demand” services like SendSocial are the future.
This is a brilliant idea, and will save home businesses in the UK a complete an utter fortune I will be recommending it to all our sellers!
No, a third party would not need to run that process. The shopping site just e-mails the person you’re buying the gift for, explains what’s going om, and they click through the link, give their address to the site, and the gift gets sent. Only one delivery transaction – better for the planet, and everyone’s pockets! Middleman not required.
Louise, the service that is the future is myHermes that actually does the deliveries for SendSocial. They’re replacing the Royal Mail. It would make much more sense for your sellers to deal directly with the buyers’ friends than have the buyers have to shell out extra cash to have their orders delivered to them and then collected by another courier to the final destination. And please, think of the planet too.
Hi all. Great to see some good discussion on the new service. We’re really excited about it
I just wanted to answer some of the comments. Of course you can simply ask friends for their addresses. However, addresses become a real pain – especially around christmas time – because people move. With our prices starting at £3.99 to deliver to an email or twitter address – with pickup from your home or office, why bother with physical addresses!
The real benefit of SendSocial comes when you start dealing with companies (or with people you don’t know). People are reluctant to give their physical address to companies because they get loads of junk mail. SendSocial puts the recipient back in control of what they receive.
SendSocial acts as a broker between the company and the recipient / sender. Its our core business to ensure the addresses don’t get to the other party. We believe there’s an opportunity to exist independently of the online stores.
Please let us know the sites in particular you would like us to integrate into, and we’ll contact them.
Tom Beckenham
Director, SendSocial
“People are reluctant to give their physical address to companies because they get loads of junk mail. SendSocial puts the recipient back in control of what they receive.”
Sorry Tom, but what’s to say that you’re not one of those companies?
Good luck to you and your service by the way, I just think it’s creating extra hassle, and I’m sure that 99.9% of people I know would prefer to just give me their address directly than have to use a third party online service to pass the details on to whoever is delivering their package.
posted this on Hermione’s FB but thought i’ll put it here too to allow SendSocial peeps respond too.
@Hermione: The video doesn’t explain the core competence of send social… If I am buying a gift for a friend, I will most likely do it online therefore it will be copy and paste of the address. I cannot imagine why i will be buying a gift for someone that doesn’t trust me enough with his/her address. It might make more sense if this is a B2B offering whereby on Amazon I will just put the the persons email and the address will pop up. hence, not for trust but convenience. In that case SendSocial focuses on tying postal Addresses to email, Twitter and the likes while logistics companies focus on what they do best.
Dave is completely right. the best thing about this service is that mail is collected direct from your office/home – but this isn’t part of SendSocial – this is a service supplied by MyHermes.
The bit SendSocial do is to ask you for your address, but people can do that, just by asking people through direct messages on Twitter, Facebook, email, mobile, telephone, etc. Why would I use, and pay, SendSocial to ask a friend for their address, when I can just ask them myself, then use MyHermes direct?
Surely this service makes sending mail more complicated?
I agree with what Dave + Rodger have said. Why would I send a gift too someone who doesn’t even trust me enough to give me their address? I can see a market for sending gifts to celebrities, but that’s all
I can use MyHermes or any of the other door to door delivery companies without sendsocial.
Although I RT the message on twitter, so would like it to do well!
fact is, this is an automated way of requesting address, acceptance of gift. So its easier then asking yourself. Even the smallest improvement in ease of use, makes the world of difference online.
Also its a bit like asking a friend to suss someone that you like. Its easier to ask someone to do it, then asking directly. You may be a fan of someone, who you want to send a gift to. But you may not want to directly, offer it. I think there is some psychological benefit to letting a third party do it.
Big win will be when you can click on icon on big ecommerce site, that allows you to organize sending of gift to recipient, just by entering their email or twitter address. If the recipient doesn’t know you well, then I see a value in allowing them to keep address private.
So I have a friend on twitter – I forgot his birthday, I want him to know I care and have not forgotten it entirely. I send a gift via sendsocial. I can’t be bothered going thru myHermes because I would hope sendsocial would have negotiated some goods rates, rates I would not get as an individual and it’s FUN!
I have an online shop my customers have a widget and can send my products via sendsocial. Brilliant and it’s FUN.
I have a house full of stuff I can give away as presents, I don’t even have to go Xmas shopping I can give my brother my old collection of AC/DC records he’s had his eye on for the last 15 yrs. I think you may have forgotten the idea that sendsocial is supposed to be FUN!! That is why it will work. OK in 3 years time if it has failed, I will eat my hard-drive, but I doubt it.
I think SendSocial is an awesome idea. I can the potential for this service for companies who run competitions on twitter like Moonfruit and Squarespace who were giving away those Macbook’s as prizes for retweeting their messages.
So for example lets say I was the winner of the Macbook and Moonfruit used SendSocial. I would have confidence in this company not having my address so they could send me junk mail and I’d still receive my prize.
I think some people will prefer to use SendSocial whilst others just get the address themselves and use the postal service.
It’s a matter of preference, but for me i prefer the complete package that SendSocial offers rather than having to faff around with different components of sending a present, something which I’m far to busy and unorganized to do!
Hermione – isn’t there the slightest conflict of interest in this startup being covered by TechFluff? In the interests of objectivity shouldn’t a journalist unrelated to SendSocial’s CEO be covering this story?
Killer use case – eBay. You’re the winning bidder, but can you *really* trust the seller? There are often disputes over transactions and I would feel more comfortable buying from random people without having to reveal my home address. Well done Mr Way and co!
[Disclosure: I'm thankfully a minor shareholder having retweeted @benpbway's initial call to action :-]
Rodger it’s my blog and I can cover what I want -related or unrelated- There are plenty of other sites/blogs that covered this story so if you don’t like the fact that I wrote a post on this then please go and read it elsewhere.
And next time, In the interests of objectivity shouldn’t you have the balls to be commenting under your real name instead of cowardly hiding behind an avatar?
I definitely feel, as others have already mentioned that sendsocial will be substantially more successful as a business tool than as a personal one. As with Paypal, people who have a pre-existing relationship may not see the value, but address-less sending of real world items must be the future at some stage, so why not now?
I agree there is a conflict of interest here. You can’t possibly give an unbiased view…….however that’s fine if you declare it. Most people that have an interest would declare it for the benefit of the reader.
On SendSocial itself…… it just seems a little redundant. If they had an inventory of things to sell… then the anon service might benefit gift sales…. but they don’t. You’d have to spend twice for postage.
If I bought a cd/dvd for less than a tenner…. it would take 3 days to get to me……. then i’d have to resend it for another £4…….and take another 5 days to get to the recipient. If they had stock…..they could send anon items direct from the warehouse.
Also….if you look on myHermes/SendSocial’s websites…. it says you can’t send a whole host of items.
Come valentines day…… you are forbidden from sending flowers!
Hi Harry
“You’d have to spend twice for postage.”
interesting point – a CD sent registered signed for via post office is about £2 and registered next day is £5. I would pay £3.99 (about half way) so I would not have to stand the pain of the UK PO Q.
“If they had an inventory of things to sell”
Well I would imagine this is the next stage, link up with amazon, ebay etc. it makes sense.
“forbidden from sending flowers!”
Maybe they could set up a 24hr reprieve on Valentines for flowers ? Good questions though, all logical points that need attending.
Hey Guys,
There are some interesting comments listed above and some make sense. However, after looking further it just seems like SendSocial looks a bit awkward?
I don’t know about the UK but here in the USA, obtaining an address is rather simple. And yes, people always seem to be on the move…
I couldn’t help but think about my own company. We allow you to include a personal message with your personal signature, a digital photo of your choice or select from over 13K samples, include your choice of gifts, press send on your computer and you are done…
Our company then creates your greeting card or whatever, with your personal message and signature, puts it into an envelope or package when sending gifts, stamps it with a real stamp(s), addresseses it and mails it around the world…It’s just that simple.
Some things can be just that simple even in this fast pace society we live in. Just one thing, you do need to supply the addresses, but we do everything else for you…
If you would like to see what we do, take a look at http://thereferralbrokers.com. It’s just another way of doing business, but it’s very effective in many parts of the world…And we have carved out an amazing niche market. No one on the planet does what we do!
No offense intended to the SendSocial team… I love and respect entrepreneurs who step outside the box. outside their comfort leave and build a dream.
I wish the all the best,
Duane Henneman
Denver, Colorado USA
Our
If this SendSocial.com is aiming to solve the address issue by enabling you to send anything, anywhere without an address this is a very nice site. I hope internet users will know this also.