[conductr]

Maybe I'm missing something, but why are X delivery companies a thing? Why not have just a delivery company? This is a case where I can't even think of any special handling being required, but I wouldn't be a customer so may be ignorant to something.

[Apocryphon]

In the case of Eaze it's delivery for a market with a very unique regulatory and logistical nature. As opposed to say, food.

[tikhonj]

I might be missing a joke, but food also has a unique regulatory and logistical nature. Amazon and Walmart.com have had trouble expanding to groceries for this very reason, and that's why they've been partnering with or acquiring grocery delivery startups.

Food essentially requires its own supply chain and has its own health regulations. Consumer preferences for food shopping also seem to be distinctly different from preferences on other classes of products.

[sithadmin]

Nobody's going to jump a Postmates delivery guy for your takeout.

A marijuana delivery guy rolling around with a significant amount of high-value product might.

[indigo0086]

Depends where and how they appear. In SF there are quite a lot of services that do this per dispensary, and I doubt they wear anything that signals to theives what they are carrying, and if they do I doubt it'll lead to that a majority of the time.

[arosier]

The main reason this exists in this market is due to how payments are processed. Largely, this is still an all cash business due to Federal legal status that ties the hands of most financial institutions.

[Clubber]

Delivery is all about logistics. Each product has it's own logistics. Delivering produce is a lot different from delivering books. For the fastest delivery, you need to stock what you are delivering. This is much easier to do with a narrow product range than a broader one.

Having said that, UPS and Fedex, etc are delivery companies. I assume this company is promoting same day delivery, otherwise, why not just use a shipping company.

[nerdponx]

Believe it or not, marijuana has significant medical use, and a lot of its potential patients are mobility impaired.

[dmschulman]

How does any other delivery company willing to ferry such a product impact the patient differently?

[frisco]

Not sure I really buy this reasoning for the rise in cannabis startups; if you follow the logic, it should bring you to "prescription drug delivery" pretty quickly, and yet the focus is all on weed.

[weaksauce]

I am pretty sure they are focused on weed because it's an emerging market whereas the pharma delivery(which home delivery does exist) is an entrenched market with well established incumbents. also, weed doesn't require a prescription(past the doc's initial rec) like a script for pharmaceuticals does.

The main reason I think is that pharmacies are a major part of drugstores and are easily accessible whereas municipalities are free to say "I don't want any dispensaries here" so there is a vacuum of availability for many people. driving to the corner pharmacy or taking a short subway to the pharmacy is different than making a cross town trip to get the medication you need.

[code_duck]

Of course… Many types of delivery companies already exists for specific needs. Shipping companies like UPS or the post office aren't going to bring you a pizza or deliver a shed into your backyard.

[conductr]

I see distinction between what I consider shipping and delivery (UPS, Fedex vs Postmates, Grubhub). But UPS/Fedex doesn't care (within laws) what you are shipping. It's not like you can be the Fedex of Birthday cards, that makes no sense but it's exactly what is happening in the delivery world.

Maybe this is natural as consumers are getting used to on demand delivery so companies need to focus on something and be known for it. But, eventually I'd expect to just have one app where I could get anything delivered without having to use app A for groceries and app B for restaurants and...

[code_duck]

For shipping, we certainly have what you describe. Amazon and Walmart can get you about everything delivered via parcel service. The important things for that type of business are procurement, storage, and order fulfillment.

Same day delivery of a locally available product is rather different. Typically, it has been tied it to the provider of a service directly – such as FTD delivering flowers, or Pizza Hut delivering pizza. Of course this is most useful for products from companies that don't have their own local delivery service. For a third party deliverer in this local situation, warehousing and that sort of logistics is not necessary. Procurement is very different as well. How do you picture the customer ordering something? An open ended delivery service that you tell them to go anywhere in the city and bring you anything you want? That seems like a different type of business, and a somewhat risky one as well, which already exists as various courier services.

I think specialization is more likely. The value from the services is that they have a some sort of menu on an app or website that provides a consistent, curated selection of whatever product, and trusted vendors that not only do you trust, but they trust.

Anyway, the legal situation in the cannabis market illustrates the need for this specialized service to exist.

[htormey]

In the case of eaze, marijuana is not legal federally so you can’t use traditional postage or banks that cross state lines.

[code_duck]

Similarly, nobody would ever ship a pizza interstate or really more than about an hour away. In the short term, I suspect cannabis will work similarly, for legal reasons as well as practicality.

In some places you can get alcohol delivered, and others, you cannot. I'm sure that as time goes on, and with federal legalization, restrictions will ease on shipping cannabis.

One thing to note is that the black market uses mail to transport cannabis in a major way… Not just the darknet vendors, but many other people. They even make rap songs about it. Home delivery of cannabis has long been popular in dense urban markets such as New York City and San Francisco, also.