Shyp downsizes, suspends operations on the U.S East Coast

The “Uber for shipping” start-up will be moving operations to San Francisco – and halting those elsewhere – in wake of decreased profitability, according to CEO Kevin Gibbon.    Shipping start-up Shyp is suspending operations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in order to “refocus on San Francisco, business customers and profitability,” according to CEO Kevin Gibbon.
   The “Uber of shipping” start-up will no longer accept new orders in the three major cities it previously served, but will fully process any orders already in-house, said Gibbon. 
   “Knowing what we know now, there’s no question we’d do some things differently. We would have built profitability in from the beginning. And shifted to serve business customers sooner. In a business that requires significant investment to grow physical operations across multiple cities, we would have focused on achieving success in one market before expanding into others,” said Gibbon in a blog post last week. 
   Shyp started operations in 2014 as a courier, intending to cater to small-scale merchants via eBay, Etsy and those who wanted to avoid the post office. However, the company quickly expanded to building out features like advanced scheduling and bulk upload and revenue increased per transaction by 150 percent, according to Gibbon’s blog post. Shyp then began focusing on businesses that ship in large or commercial quantities as a result.
  In a statement to Fast Company, Gibbon said Shyp’s downsizing “is part of a trend affecting more and more ‘Uber-for’ companies that struggle with profitability while catering to the on-demand economy.” However, he expects Shyp to reach profitability before the end of this year.