5 ms·

Why do people like home delivery? (or, does anyone, really?) It is such a pain in the ass. I'd pay good money NOT to have it delivered to my home, but often en

by tjoff 4y ago

Why do people like home delivery? (or, does anyone, really?) It is such a pain in the ass. I'd pay good money NOT to have it delivered to my home, but often enough you don't know about it when you order it. Here most will pass several small postal-services (these are your closest gas station or small grocery store or ) on their way to/from work every single day. Even if I'm gonna be home I'd rather take the three minute walk than being interrupted when I'm in the shower or be worried that my short errand is going to make me miss my package. It of course makes it worse that I live in an apartment, but it is not like a house would make it much better. The whole concept that we (well, the US at least) have porch pirates is just wild. Why? Such unimaginable waste driving around to every single home needing delivery. Especially when it is such a damn hassle trying to reroute the package to your workplace if you even have that luxury. If you are old/sick, fine. Or certain kinds of goods such as grocery deliveries. But for the love of god, why would anyone think it is desirable for it to be the norm? How can this even be a thing?

theshrike79 4y ago
I like my home, I don't like other people or crowds. I pay extra for home delivery so I can avoid people and crowds.
- tjoff 4y ago
  You wouldn't ever need to be in a crowd. Avoid people, fine, but I don't think that would be the norm. A lot of places have boxes where you just enter a code. Wouldn't ever need to be closer than 20 meters to a living soul.
  - braingenious 4y ago
    >You wouldn't ever need to be in a crowd. Have you been inside of a grocery store in the week before Thanksgiving or Christmas?
    - tjoff 4y ago
      The local one? It will be fine. The big one? No thanks but they are a little bit off anyway so postal services typically don't go there (and if so I'd just pick a different spot).
      - braingenious 4y ago
        Oh good. Thank god that the stranger on the internet you’re responding to has access to the same exact options that you do.
        tjoff 4y ago
        Makes for better discussions not to assume a special case and also not the two busiest weeks of the year, don't you think?
        braingenious 4y ago
        You categorically stated that there is never any cause to be in a crowd. Makes for a better discussion when you don’t impose your lofty opinion as an absolute, don’t you think?
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    There is one in a corner shop nearby, but it's full 99% of the time. And if it's full the packages get rerouted to the big post office a few kms away - which is always packed full of people. I'll still pay the few euros extra for a home delivery =)
    - tjoff 4y ago
      If home delivery wasn't the default maybe there would be incentives to improve that. By all means, pay for it. That is great, but it should cost money (rather than subsidized) because it is so wasteful, and it shouldn't be the default.
- danesparza 4y ago
  The world misses you. The world is better off knowing you and your opinions. Friction and conflict are not a bad thing.
braingenious 4y ago
> I'd pay good money NOT to have it delivered to my home Wait, are you being forced to get home delivery? Or are you already paying good money to buy things at the markup of your local stores?
- tjoff 4y ago
  From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not. Amazon is probably the worst in this regard but especially when ordering abroad they might use something like fedex or UPS (which both do have local services where you can pick packages up, but depending on what the sender opted to when they sent it might not be possible. "And because everyone likes home-delivery why not default at that"). Or like in the UPS case, oh, no, our store can only handle packages going by air. Boat packages are a completely different thing. There is no way we can help you because they have a different tracking label. The kinds of problems humans create for themselves...
  - braingenious 4y ago
    > From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not What on earth are you talking about? Every purchase for a physical item I’ve made since 2001 included a billing address and a shipping address. How on earth are you being tricked? Do you just not look at shipping address and get mad later? That is a very particular problem.
    - gorbypark 4y ago
      I think what they are trying to say is that a lot of times you don't know (and don't have a choice) if you are going to have to go to a post office to pick up a package or if it will be delivered to the door. Sometimes it's up to the sender, sometimes it depends on the size and sometimes it up to the whim of the postal operator. I'd say only about 25% of my Amazon purchases here in Spain have the explicit option to go pick it up at a local shop or Amazon locker. The other 75% of the time I can have it only sent to my home address. Of those times, about 50% of the time they deliver to the door and the other 50% to some random shop nearby for me to pick up without any way of knowing which will be which. Obviously results will vary from country to country.
VBprogrammer 4y ago
Wait, your delivery guys don't just drop your parcel and run these days? Since COVID even when I'm in the house are happy to answer the door it's rare I actually see who dropped the parcel.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  I know, right? I can see them from my office window, sometimes I run down to get the package to say hi but they're already half in their car.
rconti 4y ago
Home delivery for what, would be my question. I absolutely hate home delivery for food, and that went for pizza delivery in the "bad old days" just as much as Doordash in modern times. I'm only ever getting food from local restaurants anyway, I'd rather get it myself. But package delivery, hell yeah. It's opened up an unimaginable world of products that simply don't exist at a corner store. I live about a 5 minute walk from my local post office, but that's still an order of magnitude less convenient than having stuff delivered to my house. Especially because the post office is not necessarily on my way home from wherever I happen to be. I've never once worried about missing a package. you seem to be constructing an idealized world of urban life, while simultaneously creating a fantastically unsafe world of suburban life. I've never in my life had a package stolen from my porch. I don't have security cameras up all over the place, I just choose not to worry, and it all works fine.
- tjoff 4y ago
  "... that simply don't exist at a corner store." Which is why you have it delivered to your corner store... "and it all works fine." Why risk it if i it doesn't add anything. An insane amount of energy and effort for something that doesn't bring the slightest value. Don't focus too much about porch pirates, I haven't heard of them here at all so it is not part of my main argument. I just think it is wild that it exist at all (and evidently by youtube it can be a problem). A magnitude less convenient is still barely just inconvenient.
dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
> I'd pay good money NOT to have it delivered to my home Amazon lets you deliver stuff to automated lockers in various high traffic places like what you mention. Also some delivery services will let you specify a shop or something where you can have your package delivered instead of your home. > Such unimaginable waste driving around to every single home needing delivery Unless the deliveries are to high population density locations with a high density of pickup locations, home delivery the the most efficient way to shop in terms of resource usage. Anything that stops people getting in their car is a win.
- tjoff 4y ago
  "Unless the deliveries are to high population density locations with a high density of pickup locations, home delivery the the most efficient way to shop in terms of resource usage. Anything that stops people getting in their car is a win. " The point was that you already pass such places on your way to work or other errands, car or not that is way more efficient both for climate and human resources than having dedicated drivers doing stops at every single home on their route. Don't confuse this with going to the mall.
  - midnightclubbed 4y ago
    I would still argue that home delivery is more environmentally friendly... The Amazon and UPS drivers delivering to my suburban neighborhood seem to drop at least two packages per street, so the cost in gas per delivery is half a street (wild approximation). If I am driving home and stop off at a grocery store as I pass I still have to get to and navigate in and out of their parking lot. Likely more than half a streets worth of gas in the best possible case. Only walking to the store is going to be more environmentally friendly. We can talk about Amazon's packaging related carbon costs but that is not this thread.
    - tjoff 4y ago
      Even if that argument would hold (which seriously doubt)... But, the completely unnecessary hundreds of thousands of trucks that saves people literally 5 minutes??? And the unimaginable number of man-years wasted on this? Incomprehensible.
seydor 4y ago
yeah seems like ubiquitous local delivery spots will be the future. It s a matter of efficiency
gambiting 4y ago
What, what? I honestly don't understand why you wouldn't want home delivery?? Things arrive at your home, you don't need to go anywhere, I work from home so I'm here almost all the time anyway, Amazon gives you accurate timing for delivery time so no, I won't be accidentally in the shower, and porch pirates don't really exist in the UK - if I'm not at home(or don't answer the door) then the parcel goes back to the depot and I get it delivered the following day. But yes, like others have mentioned - you can just pick an automated locker as delivery address if that's what you prefer. Honestly, I'm so incredibly baffled by your comment it's crazy.
- tjoff 4y ago
  Then you didn't read my comment as a said I would even pay for the feature not to have home delivery, if I had the option. The thread gives more context. I am as baffled that home delivery is the default by many services.
mikro2nd 4y ago
Which model is better for minimising environmental impacts of all sorts: 1. 50 people all drive from their homes to various stores/pickup points to buy shit, or 2. 1 vehicle drives to 50 homes, dropping off the shit they ordered online.
- tjoff 4y ago
  First option isn't relevant to the discussion.
  - mikro2nd 4y ago
    Fair enough, but a similar, albeit lesser impact, scenario holds if there's a localish (but not close enough to walk) dropoff point. (anecdata: My closest dropoff point is a 40 minute drive each way.)
    - tjoff 4y ago
      It does not, by a longshot. Because most people wander from their home at some point, regularly even. Pick a spot near a location that is close to where you will be going regardless (which for most people most of the time will be very close to their home anyway, since it is so convenient no matter where you are going). That your closest dropoff is so far away is likely a result of it not being prioritized, due to perhaps home-delivery. Or that you live so far off the grid. Then of course you like home-delivery, but it is being heavily subsidized. Neither is an argument for the default home-delivery I'm talking about.
    - barbazoo 4y ago
      > My closest dropoff point is a 40 minute drive each way. Obviously it's different for you but I'd argue this is not the case for the majority of people. Also I'd say maybe we don't have to rush there as soon as the package arrives. Why not pick it up next time we're there anyway? Let's go one step further, why buy so much shit in the first place. It all comes down to the fact that we've taken on a lifestyle that's extremely convenient and luxurious but doesn't seem to be very sustainable.
johlindenbaum 4y ago
In Canada we have something like this.. Flex Delivery. Let's you just enter the address of the nearest postal outlet to you. Boxes are left at that depot, you get a notification when it's ready for pickup. Edit: since our gov't postal service is teamed up with a pharmacy/general store (Shoppers Drugmart), there's a tonne of convenient locations. Closest one to me is 4 blocks, on my drive home from work. https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/receiving/alternative-delivery/flexdelivery.page https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/recei...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
barbazoo 4y ago
> Such unimaginable waste driving around to every single home needing delivery. I think this is a very reasonable thing to say. It's such a decadent thing to get all your stuff delivered to your door especially given how much stuff many of us get these days. It's so inefficient compared to shipping to a central location (where possible) like a post office or a grocery store and picking it up next time you're there anywhere.
rtkwe 4y ago
There's already the option to use delivery lockers if it's that inconvenient for you. In my area they just drop the package on my porch for 99.9% of deliveries so there's not even really a concern of missing or being interrupted by a delivery. Also I'm still working from home over 75% of the time during the work week (1 week per month requested time in office) so I'm not actually driving by all these possible pickups constantly and it would be a net additional trip, and a short one at that which is the worst case for emissions and additional engine wear because it will barely get warmed up on the 1 mi drive to my nearest locker location, to use them.

by tjoff 4y ago

theshrike79 4y ago

I like my home, I don't like other people or crowds. I pay extra for home delivery so I can avoid people and crowds.

tjoff 4y ago
You wouldn't ever need to be in a crowd. Avoid people, fine, but I don't think that would be the norm. A lot of places have boxes where you just enter a code. Wouldn't ever need to be closer than 20 meters to a living soul.
- braingenious 4y ago
  >You wouldn't ever need to be in a crowd. Have you been inside of a grocery store in the week before Thanksgiving or Christmas?
  - tjoff 4y ago
    The local one? It will be fine. The big one? No thanks but they are a little bit off anyway so postal services typically don't go there (and if so I'd just pick a different spot).
    - braingenious 4y ago
      Oh good. Thank god that the stranger on the internet you’re responding to has access to the same exact options that you do.
      - tjoff 4y ago
        Makes for better discussions not to assume a special case and also not the two busiest weeks of the year, don't you think?
        braingenious 4y ago
        You categorically stated that there is never any cause to be in a crowd. Makes for a better discussion when you don’t impose your lofty opinion as an absolute, don’t you think?
- theshrike79 4y ago
  There is one in a corner shop nearby, but it's full 99% of the time. And if it's full the packages get rerouted to the big post office a few kms away - which is always packed full of people. I'll still pay the few euros extra for a home delivery =)
  - tjoff 4y ago
    If home delivery wasn't the default maybe there would be incentives to improve that. By all means, pay for it. That is great, but it should cost money (rather than subsidized) because it is so wasteful, and it shouldn't be the default.
danesparza 4y ago
The world misses you. The world is better off knowing you and your opinions. Friction and conflict are not a bad thing.

braingenious 4y ago

> I'd pay good money NOT to have it delivered to my home Wait, are you being forced to get home delivery? Or are you already paying good money to buy things at the markup of your local stores?

tjoff 4y ago
From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not. Amazon is probably the worst in this regard but especially when ordering abroad they might use something like fedex or UPS (which both do have local services where you can pick packages up, but depending on what the sender opted to when they sent it might not be possible. "And because everyone likes home-delivery why not default at that"). Or like in the UPS case, oh, no, our store can only handle packages going by air. Boat packages are a completely different thing. There is no way we can help you because they have a different tracking label. The kinds of problems humans create for themselves...
- braingenious 4y ago
  > From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not What on earth are you talking about? Every purchase for a physical item I’ve made since 2001 included a billing address and a shipping address. How on earth are you being tricked? Do you just not look at shipping address and get mad later? That is a very particular problem.
  - gorbypark 4y ago
    I think what they are trying to say is that a lot of times you don't know (and don't have a choice) if you are going to have to go to a post office to pick up a package or if it will be delivered to the door. Sometimes it's up to the sender, sometimes it depends on the size and sometimes it up to the whim of the postal operator. I'd say only about 25% of my Amazon purchases here in Spain have the explicit option to go pick it up at a local shop or Amazon locker. The other 75% of the time I can have it only sent to my home address. Of those times, about 50% of the time they deliver to the door and the other 50% to some random shop nearby for me to pick up without any way of knowing which will be which. Obviously results will vary from country to country.

VBprogrammer 4y ago

Wait, your delivery guys don't just drop your parcel and run these days? Since COVID even when I'm in the house are happy to answer the door it's rare I actually see who dropped the parcel.

barbazoo 4y ago
I know, right? I can see them from my office window, sometimes I run down to get the package to say hi but they're already half in their car.

rconti 4y ago

Home delivery for what, would be my question. I absolutely hate home delivery for food, and that went for pizza delivery in the "bad old days" just as much as Doordash in modern times. I'm only ever getting food from local restaurants anyway, I'd rather get it myself. But package delivery, hell yeah. It's opened up an unimaginable world of products that simply don't exist at a corner store. I live about a 5 minute walk from my local post office, but that's still an order of magnitude less convenient than having stuff delivered to my house. Especially because the post office is not necessarily on my way home from wherever I happen to be. I've never once worried about missing a package. you seem to be constructing an idealized world of urban life, while simultaneously creating a fantastically unsafe world of suburban life. I've never in my life had a package stolen from my porch. I don't have security cameras up all over the place, I just choose not to worry, and it all works fine.

tjoff 4y ago
"... that simply don't exist at a corner store." Which is why you have it delivered to your corner store... "and it all works fine." Why risk it if i it doesn't add anything. An insane amount of energy and effort for something that doesn't bring the slightest value. Don't focus too much about porch pirates, I haven't heard of them here at all so it is not part of my main argument. I just think it is wild that it exist at all (and evidently by youtube it can be a problem). A magnitude less convenient is still barely just inconvenient.

dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago

> I'd pay good money NOT to have it delivered to my home Amazon lets you deliver stuff to automated lockers in various high traffic places like what you mention. Also some delivery services will let you specify a shop or something where you can have your package delivered instead of your home. > Such unimaginable waste driving around to every single home needing delivery Unless the deliveries are to high population density locations with a high density of pickup locations, home delivery the the most efficient way to shop in terms of resource usage. Anything that stops people getting in their car is a win.

tjoff 4y ago
"Unless the deliveries are to high population density locations with a high density of pickup locations, home delivery the the most efficient way to shop in terms of resource usage. Anything that stops people getting in their car is a win. " The point was that you already pass such places on your way to work or other errands, car or not that is way more efficient both for climate and human resources than having dedicated drivers doing stops at every single home on their route. Don't confuse this with going to the mall.
- midnightclubbed 4y ago
  I would still argue that home delivery is more environmentally friendly... The Amazon and UPS drivers delivering to my suburban neighborhood seem to drop at least two packages per street, so the cost in gas per delivery is half a street (wild approximation). If I am driving home and stop off at a grocery store as I pass I still have to get to and navigate in and out of their parking lot. Likely more than half a streets worth of gas in the best possible case. Only walking to the store is going to be more environmentally friendly. We can talk about Amazon's packaging related carbon costs but that is not this thread.
  - tjoff 4y ago
    Even if that argument would hold (which seriously doubt)... But, the completely unnecessary hundreds of thousands of trucks that saves people literally 5 minutes??? And the unimaginable number of man-years wasted on this? Incomprehensible.

seydor 4y ago

yeah seems like ubiquitous local delivery spots will be the future. It s a matter of efficiency

gambiting 4y ago

What, what? I honestly don't understand why you wouldn't want home delivery?? Things arrive at your home, you don't need to go anywhere, I work from home so I'm here almost all the time anyway, Amazon gives you accurate timing for delivery time so no, I won't be accidentally in the shower, and porch pirates don't really exist in the UK - if I'm not at home(or don't answer the door) then the parcel goes back to the depot and I get it delivered the following day. But yes, like others have mentioned - you can just pick an automated locker as delivery address if that's what you prefer. Honestly, I'm so incredibly baffled by your comment it's crazy.

tjoff 4y ago
Then you didn't read my comment as a said I would even pay for the feature not to have home delivery, if I had the option. The thread gives more context. I am as baffled that home delivery is the default by many services.

mikro2nd 4y ago

Which model is better for minimising environmental impacts of all sorts: 1. 50 people all drive from their homes to various stores/pickup points to buy shit, or 2. 1 vehicle drives to 50 homes, dropping off the shit they ordered online.

tjoff 4y ago
First option isn't relevant to the discussion.
- mikro2nd 4y ago
  Fair enough, but a similar, albeit lesser impact, scenario holds if there's a localish (but not close enough to walk) dropoff point. (anecdata: My closest dropoff point is a 40 minute drive each way.)
  - tjoff 4y ago
    It does not, by a longshot. Because most people wander from their home at some point, regularly even. Pick a spot near a location that is close to where you will be going regardless (which for most people most of the time will be very close to their home anyway, since it is so convenient no matter where you are going). That your closest dropoff is so far away is likely a result of it not being prioritized, due to perhaps home-delivery. Or that you live so far off the grid. Then of course you like home-delivery, but it is being heavily subsidized. Neither is an argument for the default home-delivery I'm talking about.
  - barbazoo 4y ago
    > My closest dropoff point is a 40 minute drive each way. Obviously it's different for you but I'd argue this is not the case for the majority of people. Also I'd say maybe we don't have to rush there as soon as the package arrives. Why not pick it up next time we're there anyway? Let's go one step further, why buy so much shit in the first place. It all comes down to the fact that we've taken on a lifestyle that's extremely convenient and luxurious but doesn't seem to be very sustainable.

johlindenbaum 4y ago

In Canada we have something like this.. Flex Delivery. Let's you just enter the address of the nearest postal outlet to you. Boxes are left at that depot, you get a notification when it's ready for pickup. Edit: since our gov't postal service is teamed up with a pharmacy/general store (Shoppers Drugmart), there's a tonne of convenient locations. Closest one to me is 4 blocks, on my drive home from work. https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/receiving/alternative-delivery/flexdelivery.page https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/recei...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

barbazoo 4y ago

> Such unimaginable waste driving around to every single home needing delivery. I think this is a very reasonable thing to say. It's such a decadent thing to get all your stuff delivered to your door especially given how much stuff many of us get these days. It's so inefficient compared to shipping to a central location (where possible) like a post office or a grocery store and picking it up next time you're there anywhere.

rtkwe 4y ago

There's already the option to use delivery lockers if it's that inconvenient for you. In my area they just drop the package on my porch for 99.9% of deliveries so there's not even really a concern of missing or being interrupted by a delivery. Also I'm still working from home over 75% of the time during the work week (1 week per month requested time in office) so I'm not actually driving by all these possible pickups constantly and it would be a net additional trip, and a short one at that which is the worst case for emissions and additional engine wear because it will barely get warmed up on the 1 mi drive to my nearest locker location, to use them.