Silk Road forums

Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: National Direct on July 17, 2013, 03:52 am

Title: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: National Direct on July 17, 2013, 03:52 am
The other day I had a thought: What percentage of parcels (excluding lettermail) do you think contains products ordered from SR? In your city, state, country, the world!

To further add to the debate, what do you think the percent will be in the future; 3 months from now, 1 year, etc.?


To start, I'm going to use my home country, Canada, as an example. E-commerce here is dominated by US online retailers, and therefore I believe that Canada has a larger % of SR originating parcels than the US. I would like to do some research into the mail services of the world and compare volumes to SR sales volumes, for a more accurate conclusion, but for now I'm just going to speculate on general stats that I know off hand.

Canada Post's share of postage revenue generated by the good vendor's of The Road (as estimated by National Direct): 2%

1 year from now: 5%

Worldwide (complete guess): 0.05%

Go!
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: Lucius Luv on July 17, 2013, 03:55 am
my guess, no more than 1%.. 
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: kmfkewm on July 17, 2013, 06:10 am
USPS alone handles billions of pieces a mail a year.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: Rastaman Vibration on July 17, 2013, 08:02 am
I'm guessing a very small percentage. Less than 1%... But what the the hell do I know?  ;)
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: c13hqPX7d on July 17, 2013, 08:53 am
Very interesting thought... would be interested in doing research about this as well!

A wild guess, worldwide: somewhere between 0,005% and 0,05%. I also think that the percentage is rising, but I dont think it could even approach scales like 1-5%, considering the volume of parcels worldwide.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: zxydwx3 on July 17, 2013, 09:03 am
My guess:

Canada (and other first world countries with lots of internet access) +/- 0.05%

Rest of world +/- 0.001%
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: semi_feral_human on July 17, 2013, 09:17 am
A small fraction of a percent in the US. There are a lot more small time ebay sellers and grandma's sending care packages than their are people buying drugs on this place.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: aredhel on July 17, 2013, 12:29 pm
1%-2% ? ... get real !!

Even in relation to my own personal mail it makes less than 0.1% (counting all the junk mail of course)
The mail indirectly produced "because of" me, by both the supply chain and the idiotic bureaucratic system, would make this ratio even lower.

Let's say, every 1000th person orders from SR, which is probably a very high estimate, in total population it would make 0.0001%, i.e.
1 in a million, most likely much less than that.

So, yes, it's almost non-existent, among junk mail, invoices, tax office correspondence, magazines, ebay packages, etc.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: c13hqPX7d on July 17, 2013, 12:46 pm
[...]

Even in relation to my own personal mail it makes less than 0.1% (counting all the junk mail of course)
The mail indirectly produced "because of" me, by both the supply chain and the idiotic bureaucratic system, would make this ratio even lower.

[...]

So, yes, it's almost non-existent, among junk mail, invoices, tax office correspondence, magazines, ebay packages, etc.

The thread starter clearly defined the type of mail here:
Quote
What percentage of parcels (excluding lettermail)[...]

Other than that, I'm sure youre right. There is so much regular traffic that SR parcels only play a very tiny niche role, nonetheless I find it quite interesting :)
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: National Direct on July 18, 2013, 12:43 am
I only said 2% for Canada because I know a lot about mail here, and e-commerce is largely untapped here due to high postage costs. I agree its well under a fraction of a % for the world, although I'm curious as to what the actual number is and how the future will change that.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: fordingtheharrison on July 19, 2013, 07:36 am
Obviously a very small fraction. There are tons and tons and tons of packages sent daily from Amazon and other sites. Even if 1% of all packages were from here, governments would definitely be cracking down hard on the site -- at least 1 in 100 packages being filled with drugs is a lot for them. SR doesn't even form that much of the bitcoin economy these days. Use of SR isn't as widespread as you think it may be.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: th3creeper on July 19, 2013, 09:30 pm
USPS alone handles billions of pieces a mail a year.
160 Billion pieces of mail were handled in 2012 by USPS.  For perspective's sake that's 40% of the entire world's mail volume. 

I think it's safe to say SR pkgs make up a teeny, tiny fraction of that total.

Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: National Direct on July 20, 2013, 07:47 am
Ok, so everyone agrees on the insignificance of your packages. Maybe link to this thread if someone is paranoid about their mail getting checked for peace of mind.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: p3nd8s on July 24, 2013, 06:40 pm
My guess, 0.001%.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: HCeline on July 24, 2013, 07:19 pm
i'd bet it would be so minisculy small it would reasonably need to be in scientific notation.   I wonder what the percentage of mail in the world is drugs or even just contraband?  and how that compares to the silk road load?  To bad real stats like that would be a wet dream for leo.   
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: qrbr6 on July 24, 2013, 07:57 pm
It must be a small fraction of 1%.
Title: Re: Speculation: What % of parcels does SR products account for?
Post by: Juggernog on July 25, 2013, 03:57 am
In the good spirit of open debate, before I even finished reading the OP, I instantly thought this number has to be below 1%
Research into this would be great.