What: Citizen Shipper matches consumers who need help moving furniture, pets and other household items with drivers, who are headed in the same direction.
Expected pay: set by you
Husl$core: $$$$
Commissions & fees: $25 per month, after free three-month trial; shippers also pay a fee
Where: Nationwide
Requirements: 21 or over; pass a background check, which includes driving record, references and credit
Review:
Citizen Shipper plays matchmaker between people who need help moving pets or possessions with the drivers willing and able to do it. And, since many jobs involve moving pets, you don’t even need to be a burly guy with a truck to participate.
Shippers say what they need to ship, where, when, and, sometimes, how much they’re willing to pay. Drivers get notified about new jobs in their area and decide whether to bid or accept a proposed job. Citizen Shipper also promotes on-the-way deliveries by creating a stack of up to five other potential deliveries that are between the driver’s current destination and the one that was accepted. Citizen Shipper postulates that drivers can provide more competitive bids — and make more money — by adding deliveries in the stack. This is a nice feature that should work well for both customers and drivers.
Drivers can try the service for free for three months. After that, however, they must pay $25 per month to remain on the site. The site also charges shippers a fee that’s calculated as a percentage of the shipping cost. This fee does not come out of the driver’s pay. It’s an added cost to the consumer.
The site does not charge drivers a commission on the jobs they take, so charging a monthly fee — particularly after a long trial period — seems reasonable. It gives drivers plenty of time to know whether the platform will bring in enough business to make the monthly fee worthwhile. Our only concern with the site is a gag-clause in their driver agreement. This clause subjects drivers to a $1,000 fine if they “defame” the site’s business integrity or “make damaging statements regarding our business and services.” Gag clauses are usually a bad sign. However, we saw no indication of trouble in this case.
You can find other driving, delivery and moving options that might be of interest at Truxx, Dolly, Amazon Flex and Bellhops.
What their users say: (from an in-person interview)
I’ve only been on the site for a month, but it’s worked out really well so far. We’ve had more than a half-dozen deliveries.