I am unsure if anyone else is in the same boat as myself, but I am disgusted regarding shipping prices on ebay. I am wondering if anyone would be interested in a community thread in which people could post the cities they are in and there level of willingness to pickup and ship bikes/bike related stuff.

Let me put this into my current situation. I am eyeing up a beautiful frame on ebay. It has a "problem" that is a relatively easy fix, which most would shy away from. I expect the frameset to go for a relatively low price. The problem is the S&H on the frameset is 70 bones. I consider this on the high side for shipping an entire bike from where they are to me (and yes, I do know it is a way to sidestep ebay from taking so much of a cut for many).

I wrote to the seller and asked if local pickup would be free and he said an enthusiastic "absolutely." Now, you see where this is going... the bike is in a city several hundred miles away.

OK, here is what I see could happen: I post in a thread that asks if anyone could pick up a frameset in, let's say, St. Louis and mail it to me in Pittsburgh. I would pay for the shipping and would even be pleased to kick in some dough for the service. So, we have a $30 shipment and $10 for someone's service (or perhaps it could be just a pay it forward type of thing) and we have a win, win, win situation on our hands.

OK, I know we could blow holes in the idea, but I thought about throwing it out there and see if there was any interest. I know I would be pleased to help others in this capacity. Of course, we could talk about spotty packaging, liability, and general distrust of the human race.

But perhaps it could work really well... most of the time.

Comments?

If this is already being done on BF, slap me and drop a link/