The Mystery of "What Box?" Solved With AR

Ah the question that has been holding back society for as long as most of us can remember. What box do I use to ship this thing? Finally we as a species can evolve, as eBay is now using augmented reality in order to help you select what size box you need to ship that thing. The AR technology is built on Google's AARCore platofrm, and can be accessed via the eBay app. Just open the app, and it will virtually place a USPS flat rate box over a real-world item to see if it will fit. What glorious times we live in. Thanks to cageymaru for the story.

"This technology is just one example of the types of innovation we're working on to transform eBay," James Meeks, eBay's head of Mobile, said in a statement to GeekWire. "It demonstrates our continual innovation on behalf our sellers to help them save time and remove barriers."

Pretty neat if it actually works. I've been shipping (and receiving) on and off for the past 30ish years, so I am fairly good at doing this, but most of the people at work could definitely use this.

Sweet I can finally throw away that tape measure I’ve been lugging around.

Nice people can also throw away their brains as we move along....not even needed for farting anymore since an app will take care of this too..

JargonGR said:

Nice people can also throw away their brains as we move along....not even needed for farting anymore since an app will take care of this too..

Click to expand...

I need an app to reply to this message. You are right about that. The iDumb age is upon us.

Why are they showing a demo of an app that isn't working properly? Clearly the proper packaging for that product is a garbage can.

i foresee a really stupid twitter feed with people posting what USPS box size is needed for all sorts of things.. people.. items.. animals.. etc

If they developed a device that printed the box, I'd be impressed.

It's not like you can't solve this "mystery" with a tape measure or anything...

Jeez, people are becoming mentally handicapped by their needs for apps for everything...

I can see this app being useful for people who are completely clueless on how to ship an item.
I buy / sell a bunch of electronics and engine parts on ebay and for the most part, items are packaged decently. However, there are outliers.
I purchased a $300 multimeter and It was packaged in a bot with no packaging other than 2 crumpled plastic shopping bags. I have received keyboards that are literally just thermally sealed in vinal bags. I received oscilloscope probes with no packaging.
Then there's the other side of the coin where people are clearly leaving money on the table by shipping wrong. Someone shipped a 6x6x4 sized item in a large flat rate box. Large Flat rate is $18. They could have shipped it in a Regional Rate A box for $6.01.
If they knew about the different boxes available from USPS and Fedex, they could save themselves money.

Ebay has the opportunity here on educating it's audience on packaging services. I hope they take this seriously and don't just have an intern spend 30 minutes and call it a day.

I've read that this app incorporates flat rate box sizes from USPS. I hope they will include USPS regional a and b sizes as well. it would be even better if they included fedex box & bag prices along with sizes too.
I find that a lot of ebay sellers are also unfamiliar with USPS media mail. If you are selling a book, marketing material, educational paper or educational digital product, you can ship an item for close to like 70% off. It's insane.
Also a lot of sellers are not signing up for ebay seller shipping benefits. It is sometimes a bit of a hassle to setup, but it's worth it as you can use fedex smartpost and save between 11-30% on shipping costs.
Again, I really hope ebay takes this seriously and uses it as a way to educate clueless sellers

This is what our fucking seller fees go to?

Seriously :|