It may be that they are functionally identical to other fulfilment companies, but if they do a better job of convincing their indie seller target market to use them and respond better to their needs, it probably doesn't matter.
> Oh, it's team chat. There are lots of companies which do that, including HipChat and Campfire. The site seems to be addressed to people who don't know that. Nice UI, though.
> Not to be confused with "slackware.com", which is a Linux distribution.
Exactly. And if people are curious about the type of pain that might drive people to a service like this, they can read about episodes like:
>"After fighting through FedEx's rigorous claim process they declared that the package is not valuable beyond the cost of the paper it took to create this handcrafted, original artwork," Scofield and Shuey wrote. "Even though the package was insured, they aren't willing to pay the full $6,000 it cost to create the intricate set and are only covering the cost of the materials."
I side with FedEx on this and it makes perfect sense. I doubt blackbox would handle it any differently.
The problem is that $6000 is just an arbitrary price made up by a single person. There's nothing stopping me from drawing a stick figure, saying I charge $1 million for the labor that goes into this drawing, shipping+insuring it for a ton of money, then attempting to convince FedEx it was damaged during shipping to claim my money.
Additionally, FedEx did tremendously more than just pay for the materials. A piece of Tyvek like that costs a few dollars, they paid out $1000 for it.
> Oh, it's team chat. There are lots of companies which do that, including HipChat and Campfire. The site seems to be addressed to people who don't know that. Nice UI, though.
> Not to be confused with "slackware.com", which is a Linux distribution.