this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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It baffles me that "delivering" packages like this is a standard practice over there. I'm in the EU, and if I'm not home by the time the delivery is attempted, the company would call and ask when is a good time to try again, or would leave the thing to be collected at an office.
I'm in the EU and I don't have to be present for anything.
My guess is that wherever they is more prevalent they would require signatures/presence.
Well — Amazon has made package delivery such a common thing that few people would have the time to be around during package delivery hours because they are at work. Few people can go home from work just to wait for a package.
The seller can mandate a signature. I've had to sign for valuables like laptops, phones and ammo. (That last one was to prove I'm American.)
So it's possibly cheaper for the seller not to require a signature (since it's an extra service), but it's no biggie if the package gets stolen? Seems logical...
Well yeah, if it only gets stolen 1% of the time, and the cost of that service is more than the replacement cost when things get stolen, it makes sense to not require a signature. It's just like retail, they just factor in a certain amount of loss into the price of the items they sell.
Fair point, yeah. If it's a no-hassle process for the customer to report something as stolen (even without proof - because I figure not everybody has surveillance cameras), sure.
The other thing that's quite common is to require proof of delivery. Always fun because now the delivery driver has to take an awkward photo of me holding the box.
🤣damn
It used to be that they would not leave packages unattended at a residence, they would leave a note on the door about an attempted delivery. I suppose with the rise of online shopping things had to change. I don't see American delivery companies bothering with trying to contact you/retrying deliveries, they just want to get out as many packages as possible... and there is a LOT they have to deliver in a day.
You do have a lot of choices in how you want your items delivered depending on the delivery company. Most of the have apps/websites where you can choose to have them hold the package, or deliver it to a specific location on property. By default packages will be left at the door.
Personally I have never had a problem with porch pirates, and if a package is expensive or important I will have the delivery company hold it and pick it up there.
Yeah, same up here in Norway. If I'm not home they will offer to leave the package at a collection point, or drop it off at my place of work. As far as I know, they're not allowed to just leave it at my door step and hope for the best.
Someone let's you these days like porter buddy
TIL I learned of porter buddy, thanks.
When I had my phone delivered it was from a special courier, not the normal post. I had to show ID in order to accept the delivery.
(EU)
In Germany you have to give permission in the tracking menu to have them drop the package off somewhere else. I live in an apartment building so I usually tell them to drop it in the hallway of the building, since there's usually someone at home to at least open the door downstairs if I'm not at home. I've seen packages outside the front door only once here and it is not a place I'd ever choose.
In my region, I see packages in front of doors in a lot places 😂 guess I live in a peaceful country.
We can even leave cars unlocked, and they don’t get stolen, but we don’t, out of fear that a kid may loosen the handbrake in play..
It's not so much a matter of the region itself, I live in a pretty decent area of my city. It's more that the houses here are all apartment buildings so in most cases the packages will get placed in the hallways instead of the front door of the building. There's just not really a need to ever have them drop it off there.
Here it gets most of the time placed where the “Briefkästen“ are, if not specified by customer, that wishes their package placed. So, sometimes in and sometimes outside. A phone would most likely be placed in the “Milchkasten” which is a place in the “Briefkasten“ emerged from a time where it was normal to get daily milk delivered. 🤔 well as far as I got told by my parents.
Most of us wouldn't buy from someone who made us jump through hoops like that.
How inconvenient is getting your package stolen lmao
It's literally never happened to me and, if it did, is still less inconvenient than waiting for a delivery one single time. It's as simple as contacting the retailer and getting a replacement shipped in a day or two for anyone big. The worst case is maybe a week.
All of that is better than going out of my way to go to a pickup location or staying home waiting for a package.
Exactly. I've never had a package stolen, but if I did, I would just report it and it would come later that week. No big deal.
It's not really a lot of hoops to jump through, and this seems to be standard practice by DHL, UPS, FedEx and others, over here.
I actually appreciate getting the options on delivery day. E.g. I usually get to choose what collection point they leave the package at (so I can pick a spot I pass by going home from work or whatever), or if I want them to come back the next day, or have it dropped off at my office (not always an option, kinda seems to depend on how stressful a day the driver is having). I certainly prefer it to risk having the package stolen, then reporting, waiting for a new delivery..
Of course, if the package is large, heavy or otherwise unwieldy it might be a pain not having it delivered directly to the door, but if I'm expecting such a thing I try to be home to accept delivery.
Call it what you want; anyone who changed their policy would go bankrupt overnight as they lost 95% of their sales volume, because no one else does that silly nonsense.
You're free to waste time going to pick up "deliveries", and this has more or less always been the case. But that's a dealbreaker for the vast majority of the population, because no other competitor will pull that nonsense.
Welcome to the rest of the world mate. This issue here is another "no way to prevent this, says only nation where this happens" as The Onion would say.
OK, in the rest of the world you have dogshit service. Why is that relevant to the fact that Americans are unwilling to do business with companies that don't respect our time?
Stolen packages aren't an actual problem at any scale, and I'm willing to bet shrinkage from theft is meaningfully lower than it is in physical stores. Expecting people to sit around all day waiting for deliveries is a terrible trade off for a rounding error worth of loss to the retailer.