

Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers - georgespencer

In the past three years I've had to ship items nationally or receive shipped items in the UK on a few occasions. The experience has been universally terrible.<p>1. Sign-up process is convoluted. This should be so simple. Are you a business or a person? What are your billing details and contact details? Done. Don't give me a Merchant ID or make me telephone you. Don't make me put in address information: you can have that when I send something.<p>2. Believe it or not, I do not know how heavy my item is or its exact dimensions. I threw away the packaging. I don't have a set of bathroom scales because I'm not a teenage girl. Charge me a premium for not knowing. I don't give a shit. Just don't force me to enter the dimensions of something which I might not have in front of me or schlep it to the scales at my friends' house so that you can calculate how much diesel you need to be putting in your vans. You're coming to my place to pick it up. Why the fuck can't you just do this yourself? Or how about you plug into a product database that knows how heavy stuff is? While we're on the subject: do you have any idea how offensive the idea of printing something is to me? An actual, honest to god physical piece of paper? Why? And then what do I do? Attach it to the box with glue? String? Tape? Fucking hell, you guys go around picking up parcels all day, can't you just do this yourself with special stickers? Charge me a few bucks for it.<p>3. Don't give me a 25-digit code to track my parcel. That's what, a hundred quadrillion potential shipments? Enough for every single person in the world to send 14 million parcels each with significant room to breathe. Make it very simple for me to get to the parcel I want to track. I can track by consignment or reference number with TNT, but it's not clear which one is provided by a shipper in some cases. Don't you dare fucking say "Consignment number not recognised" when I put the reference number into the consignment number box. Do it for me. You know TNT recycle these numbers? If you log in to their odious website with a tracking number you had to decipher from the wall of text they send you, you sometimes see that your package has been delivered! To someone called Ben! Who lives in Scotland! Oh, no, wait, their crummy service has 25 digit non-unique tracking numbers. Makes perfect sense.<p>4. Make it useful for me to track my parcel. "Your package is being processed in our network" is a message I've seen a few times. Tip: any time you put a code or a status number into the human-facing message for parcel tracking, you've fucked up. If something is going to DELAY or SPEED UP the arrival of my parcel, that's all I care about. If you're not going to provide me with a useful window to receive my parcel or send it (i.e. a one hour window) then you should tell me where your van is with GPS. Fuck the security concerns; put RFID on your parcels and secure your vans with that futuristic stuff banks use (I think it's a combination of paint, sensors and BIG SCARY WARNING SIGNS). Just don't treat me, the guy who pays for your courier service, like a criminal who can't be trusted to know where his parcel is, just because someone might take a chance that someone is using the same van to ship Faberge eggs in my area and roll it.<p>5. Don't make me sit at home for an entire day waiting for my parcel. Give me a specific window when you're going to deliver it and try to be there on time. If you're late leaving or there's a mechanical problem or traffic or roadworks or inclement weather, update me. Estimating time is hard. I get that. It's not so hard that you have to identify "Between 9am - 1pm" as your four hour window. Today (May 14) I tried to use Parcel Force for the first time, having exhausted all other options in previous attempts to ship things. They said they'd pick up my parcel betwen 14:00 and 16:30. I arrived home from work at 13:40 to find that they'd been and dropped a note through the door saying "Sorry we missed you." The note was labeled to say that he'd tried to collect the parcel at 14:00, twenty minutes into the future. I called the depot straight away. "What time is it right now?" "13:50." HOW ARE YOU GUYS STILL IN BUSINESS?<p>6. Find a way or make away, or: I don't care about your difficulty in getting my package to me, it's your job. I don't care that my house is hard to find. It's your job. I don't care that you ran out of vans at the depot. It's your job. I don't care that the handwriting your driver put on the form was inscrutable. It's your job. Get my package to me on time, or find another business to run.<p>7. If you're going to have a local depot, make it one I can pick up from. "I'm afraid your package is being held in our depot," said the email from TNT. Oh, no problem, I happen to live 45 minutes away from it and since I've been waiting for this oft-delayed package for A FUCKING WEEK WHILST IT SAT IN YOUR FUCKING DEPOT, I'd rather eat the time up and go get it myself. "Sorry, you can't collect from our depots! We're a courier service! We bring them to you!" No, you don't. GNRRGRGHRHGHG.<p>8. Never, ever make me phone you to find out anything at all, ever. If I have to phone you, I'm automatically pissed. You should phone me to beg forgiveness when my package is delayed. You should email me and text me when you leave a note saying you missed me. You should never call me to say that you're going to miss your six hour window of delivery without saying "but we're going to refund the full price of shipping to you" or "but if you like we'll get another, more reliable courier who understands how to get a box from A to B, to bring it to you today", or "but if you like, we'll get our intern to take a series of taxis across the country, at our expense, to get it to you on time." Because you fucked up when you promised me you'd get it somewhere on time and didn't.<p>9. Simplify your pricing. Don't make me pay extra to get my package to me by a certain time. Offer me two options: any time the next day, or on a set time on a set day. Make this relative to your load, the schedule of your vans and the scheduled of postal trains/flights/bikes. Show me how, if I can wait an extra two hours, I can save a bunch of money on my parcel because it means it will get onto a super cheap freight train rather than necessitating you chartering a helicopter to bring it to me.<p>Someone please, for the love of all that is holy, fix this broken experience.
======
kalleboo
As someone who only receives packages, I also hate courier services with a
burning rage.

My FedEx guy used to have a cell phone he'd use to call me (on fedex packages
from Amazon, they print the delivery phone number) as he was coming around to
my place to make sure I was ready and not on the john or something. It was
great. Then FedEx thought good service was too expensive and removed their
phones, causing me to miss half my packages because I had headphones on or
something.

I then moved to an apartment building with an intercom system. Every time I
got a delivery it'd first fail with "we don't have the PIN code for your
building". Every time I'd have to call them and tell them to use the intercom
to call my apartment.

I've seen some good solutions though:

\- In Sweden, the regular postal system shut down all their post offices and
started offering their services instead through local supermarkets,
convenience stores, gas stations etc. So what happens when you get a package
mailed to you is that you get a SMS message or a paper slip in your mailbox
with a code, and then you go to the store it was sent to to pick it up (for me
it's always been the supermarket I go to daily to shop anyway, at most a 5
minute walk). The bonus of not being in a dedicated post office is the hours
of supermarkets are far far better than the post offices ever were.

\- In Japan, the domestic courier services let you pick a date and 2/3-hour
window for delivery in advance. I've never had them miss the window. If you
miss a delivery, you can reschedule it online, often to the very next delivery
window on the same day. You can sign up online to get "missed delivery"/etc
notifications by email.

~~~
ScottBev
I like the idea behind the Swedish system, but then I think about what would
happen in the US. Wal-Mart would get the exclusive contract for services.
After that you would be happy to actually receive a package, most likely not
your package.

I hate Wal-Mart a lot more then the delivery services.

~~~
bdunbar
_Wal-Mart would get the exclusive contract for services. After that you would
be happy to actually receive a package, most likely not your package._

What about Wal-Mart is it that leads you to believe they'd do badly at being a
post office?

------
dangerboysteve
First of all shipping companies are geared to service larger business no the
piss-ant customer that does 1-2 shipments per day. There are automated
solutions for all this stuff that makes it very easy. No shipping company in
their right mind would change their workflow to make it easier to a "home"
user. Why they heck would they.

Parcel dimensions are weights are important because the actual shipment cost
calculation is based on cubed dimensional weights. So the package dimensions
are important. It's a bit of an international thing between all the major
couriers and post services. Normally the calculation is:

DHL: (L cm x W cm x H cm)/5000[2] or 4000[3] depending on certain
import/country criteria

FedEx: (L cm x W cm x H cm)/6000 (new) or /5000 (old, still used in Asia) for
international shipments, (L cm x W cm x H cm)/7000 for domestic shipments

UPS: (L cm x W cm x H cm)/6000 or /5000 depending on certain import/country
criteria

The final change is based on the higher number of the actual weight or the
dimensional weight.

Don't get me started on fuel surcharges.

Tracking numbers are can be large for a variety of reasons. Unique values
being one of them but some companies keep them know for multiple years. And
the numbers are assigned per piece you are shipping.

You make a lot of good points but the reality it all these companies make
their money from corporations. And corporations for the most part automate the
hell out their shipping solutions. As for the courier companies, every time
they have to deal with a bad label or anything that requires a human to step
in to help process the shipment you are slowing down the production line.
Watch a couple videos of a Fedex or UPS sort facility to get an appreciation
of what they deal with daily.

~~~
peter_l_downs

        First of all shipping companies are geared to service larger
        business no the piss-ant customer that does 1-2 shipments per day.
        There are automated solutions for all this stuff that makes it very
        easy. No shipping company in their right mind would change their
        workflow to make it easier to a "home" user. 
    

I think the OP is asking for the creation of a company that _does_ focus on
"home" users, precisely _because_ their current shipping experience is so
fucked up.

    
    
        Why they heck would they.
    

Because there seems to be a huge demand for reasonably-priced, "home"-user
oriented shipping. Dealing with the current system is a huge pain in the ass
if you're not a huge company, and the OP (like me, and others, I'm sure) would
be willing to pay a premium for higher quality service.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
That's what businesses like PostNet and FedEx Kinko's are for. Take your
package there to ship it if you don't want the hassle, or use their address to
receive stuff. They will happily sign for your package and call you when it
gets there.

Why is any of this a problem? Don't businesses like this exist in the UK?

~~~
onlawschool
But I don't want to go to FedEx Kinkos to ship a package. I live in the city
and its a pain in the ass to walk 5 blocks with a couple of big packages and
stand in line at a Kinkos. I want shipping a package to be as simple as
receiving a package. Then, I want to be able to receive more useful
information on the package's status delivered in real time to my smartphone.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Then use the USPS. You can go online and print a label complete with postage
and request a package pickup. Pickup doesn't cost anything.

------
Rudism
I live in a city with a very rigid street-naming and numbering convention
(i.e., even if you've never heard of it before, given a street number and
postfix such as "14th terrace" is already enough information to know whether
it's north-south or east-west running, approximately where in the overall grid
of the city it's located, and what kind of street it is--for example all
"lanes" are cul-de-sacs). The problem with that is the courier companies all
come to rely on that system extremely heavily, and, luck of all lucks, the
cul-de-sac that I live on was mis-named by the city as a "court" instead of a
"lane".

Both of the big-name companies here (UPS & FedEx) give phone numbers on their
tracking systems that you can call when they are unable to deliver a package,
but a) nobody is actually notified of the failed delivery, so you have to know
that a package is coming in and actively watch the tracking page to catch the
failed deliveries, and b) the people you talk to at that number are either
incapable of or unwilling to make any kind of permanent note in their system
that can fix chronically failing addresses.

For several years we put up with about 80-90% of our packages failing delivery
(moreso from UPS than FedEx, but both were pretty abysmal) due to "incorrect
or incomplete address," being forced to notice this on the tracking system on
our own, then calling to tell them that no, the address is not incorrect, the
street itself is misnamed and yes we've called to explain this dozens of times
in the past and can you please put some kind of permanent note in your system
to ensure this doesn't happen anymore.

A couple years ago, after another failed delivery from UPS, I decided to try a
new tactic and looked for public UPS twitter accounts that I could tweet in
the hopes of bringing it into a more public sphere. I found @MikeAtUPS and
tweeted him that another delivery had failed, it happens a lot, and nobody at
UPS seems to be taking the situation seriously. He directed me I think to a
corporate support email, which I followed up on, including links to the tweet
and response. Amazingly, this actually worked. They responded immediately with
an apologetic email, said they had made a correction in their system (though,
I'd heard that one before), and that this shouldn't happen again.

And it didn't! After that, UPS stopped failing our deliveries (with the very
odd exception). FedEx slowly started to get better over time as the drivers
started to learn the area better, and also stopped being an issue. So maybe
the lesson is, skip the outsourced help desk numbers and go public with your
grievances if you want to be taken seriously.

As an aside, USPS has not once ever failed to deliver a package or even drop
one off later than the expected delivery time. If it's an option, I will
always choose them over the private courier services 100% of the time.

~~~
protomyth
UPS is an interesting beast in rural areas, I always preferred them to FedEx.
Where I grew up there were no road names before the 911 push a couple years
back. The UPS drivers learned where all the people were and what landmarks the
locals used for navigation. It did make for some interesting conversations
with vendors ("ship it to: house 311 behind the school").

FedEx never really got the whole rural concept. Even with the names, they
still have so many problems.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It must be regional.

I also live in the country and both UPS and FedEx deliver to me regularly.
Even on overnight deliveries, I can leave a signed note to the driver that
it's OK to leave the package if no one is home. Often if there is no one home
and it's raining, the driver will try the doors on any vehicle outside (we
have multiple cars/trucks) and put the package on the driver's seat.

------
27182818284
Looking over your points I notice that almost none of them have applied to me
as a home user that ships probably slightly above average amounts of packages.
For example,

• I've never had to call someone.

• I've used flat-rate boxes where I don't need to measure out my stuff.

• When pricing things out, the only thing I have to choose is generally
whether I want insurance and roughly how soon I'd like it to arrive.

• I've never had to print something out. Generally I write in sharpie or print
the address info and the clerk adds their own good looking sticker right
before I pay.

• I have picked up stuff from my local depot. A few times...? Confused on this
point too.

I'll agree with you on

• The time slots for packages to arrive are annoying if you don't accept
packages being left at your door. This is also true about plumbers, cable
techs, phone people, etc.

Is it a difference between business and residential customers?

~~~
georgespencer
I'm in the UK, using couriers (people who come to my place to pick stuff up)
rather than post office (I take my heavy item to them and they weigh it and
ship it).

> I've never had to call someone.

This is a broadly applicable CS issue which everyone in the startup world
would do well to remember: time dilates when you're waiting. Customers waiting
in a store to speak to an assistant disproportionately overestimate the amount
of time they've been waiting (i.e. a 2 minute wait feels like 10 minutes).

I call to chase them CONSTANTLY. Today for example, I called to say that the
guy had come early. They took my details and said they'd get him to come back.
At 4pm, a couple hours after I'd spoken to them, I called again. "Oh yeah the
driver didn't answer my message. I was going to call you." Every courier I
have ever used has made me fight them to give them my money and get my item
shipped.

> I've used flat-rate boxes where I don't need to measure out my stuff.

You can get those from a post office in the UK, but I'd rather they just let
me pay extra for the guy to box it himself. That way you can kiss goodbye
damaged during/before shipping disputes, too.

> I've never had to print something out.

It's the default option for a whole bunch of couriers in the UK.

> I have picked up stuff from my local depot. A few times...?

Royal Mail will allow you to. So will any couriers who use them instead of
having their own depot. Big couriers will not allow you to collect your item
from their despatch centre, you have to arrange for redelivery.

~~~
tomelders
I've had royal mail pull the future thing on me a few times. Picking up from
the depot is no joy. The depot near me is open for about 3 seconds a day and
there's always a queue of at least 40 people on saturday (closed sunday),
which is the only time most people can actually fit in a trip to the depot,
what with all those pesky jobs they have to go to.

If you have 40 people queueing outside you deport every saturday to pick up
stuff you didn't deliver, then you're not doing it right.

I feel you pain. Perhaps it's better in the states, but here in the UK it's a
fourth rate service.

~~~
Terretta
> _If you have 40 people queueing outside you deport every saturday to pick up
> stuff you didn't deliver, then you're not doing it right._

Does anyone in line go home empty handed because the depot closed before they
got serviced? If not, then it sounds as though the depot has optimized for the
minimum number of employees to get the job done during the window, without
worrying about the variable queue length.

At the end of the day, most people triage on price, and these companies are
not irrational about that.

~~~
tomelders
People leave empty handed all the time. I've tried to pick up a package from
the depot near me twice, queued for ages and not once been able to actually
collect my package. I've had to arrange for my flat mate who get's friday off
work to pick it up for me on a quiet day.

I'd say the right way to do it would be to have full day opening hours on a
saturday. The variable length of the queue on different days provides some
great insight that's currently being ignored.

------
JoeAltmaier
I live far from a hub. Used a certain nameless shipper for dealing with DELL
because that's all they use(d at the time).

Each time hardware would arrive, it would be physically tortured - once a huge
dent in the bottom of the frame (did they drop it repeatedly on a guardrail
out on the freeway?), once broken IN HALF!

Sending was equally fun. A large multiprocessor cabinet was to go overnight.
Pickup time: the guy brought a van too short. He simply dumped it over on its
side and slid it in (despite THIS END UP stickers all over). Off to the
terminal!

Didn't see it for a week. They had no idea whatsoever where it went. Turns out
the guy was late to the airport, so just dumped it into a truck going
somewhere. A truck on an odyssey of discovery apparently, finally turned up a
week later in Tennessee.

~~~
laserDinosaur
Why would you protect the company name?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its one local clown making them look bad.

------
tibbon
I agree. Its a broken experience. One thing to note however is that you've got
two different people to appease- the sender and the receiver.

The receiver wants all the best tracking/delivery/notification options
possible. The receiver might not always explicitly state that they want the
cheapest, but they will often factor it in. Often the shipper wants the place
that's closest to them who is cheapest.

Its not dissimilar to the airline system. Everyone ranks things that they want
better of on flights (service, seats, legroom, meals, nice planes, etc) but
(nearly) everyone searches by first price and then by rough schedule, often
rewarding the cheapest. I hate US Air, but if it comes to a flight that's on
US Air which is $100 cheaper than one on something else... I unfortunately
often choose US Air.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Actually we choose based on price for two simple reasons:

1\. Thats pretty much all airlines (can/do) differentiate on. The mainframes
running pretty much all the ticket/seat allocation worldwide are sooo old they
only handle pricing. And no-one can fix them because everyone plugs into it.

2\. Actually thats all we really do care about.

(2, is less true. I am going to be taking my kids on a long flight soon. I
would pay extra for an on board creche / nanny. But there is no way of putting
that flag on any flight search so no point in offering it.)

This is a perfect example of how technology encourages a flight to the bottom.
You have US air. Why? Maybe they only use lemon scented paper napkins. You
would like to search for flights that never use lemon scented paper napkins,
but you cannot, so there is no way to tell if spending 100 dollars more will
make you happy so why bother?

And maybe its only worth 50 dollars to you not to get lemon scented ...

~~~
tibbon
You're right, that essentially, we just want to get somewhere... but flying
(in the US at least, my last Air France flight in 2007 was wonderful) has
become a degrading, terribly uncomfortable experience. I'd rather take a
Grayhound bus than fly (and between Boston and NYC I do), and most planes are
just busses with wings.

Gone are the days of in-flight martinis, flying being a somewhat classy
experience, and anything resembling comfort.

At this point, maybe its not even worth the airlines trying, as the TSA
degrades the experience at the door.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
The airlines have to try. Flight safety is expensive.

I mean you can conceive of solutions:

* Why does the luggage not get treated like container transport. Load up cages next to check in desks for the same destination.

* Take back control over your booking. There is absolutely no need for any airline to not take bookings direct. Want to sell through your partners - fine but they come to your API/site to actually book it. Then everyone has real time info. Think that will drive your prices down? No, don't sell at loss making prices.

I could go on. I am having a hell just trying to find somewhere nice and sunny
to take 2 children. There is just so many options and so little information to
trust.

But this problems exists for every service - hair cutting, selling houses and
airlines. One and only one URI is really selling an actual seat or an actual
house or an actual chair with a hair dresser.

So one and only one URI should publish what is available.

And then aggregation and search is simple(ish)

It seems to me that the next evolution of the search engine is to tell the
people selling stuff that they don't need to do SEO, or marketing. They just
need to use a standard micro data / format for whatever they are selling.

A long time ago I worked for an ISP that gave 1MB of personal disk space free
to everyone. We bumped to to 10 then 100 when we realised no one actually used
it.

This failure to put our own stuff online is the cause of huge problems - real
estate agents, facebook, AOL, every walled garden, every agent, all stem from
people and businesses not publishing their own needs.

Must stop ranting now

~~~
tibbon
I had a strange experience recently trying to book a ticket through
Hipmunk/Orbitz. I found a ticket. Tried to buy 3 times. Each time it said the
ticket was no longer available, but it kept showing up in search results
(stale cache on the server?). Same ticket was found on the airline's website
for $20 more, which I was able to purchase.

Why it's more expensive to purchase direct, I don't understand.

~~~
tomkarlo
Airlines and hotels often have agreements with the aggregators that they will
not offer fares lower than what they are making available through the GDS
aggregators.

This is why hotel sites will offer discounted prices based either on
prepayment, or package deals, so that the price isn't directly comparable to
Expedia, etc. It's also why those deals are sometimes the best - with sites
like Expedia/Travelocity taking something like 30-40% of the nightly rate
(versus a much lower % for airline tickets), hotels should be willing to bend
over backwards to get you to book directly.

Also, it's possible to put a hold on a ticket without buying it; I'm guessing
here, but if you're looking at one system the available fares list might
reflect that some seats are on hold (by not showing those fares), while
another system might not, resulting in different fares being visible... that
will generally show up as a difference in the lowest-priced fare, since most
of the search sites highlight that parameter when displaying search results.

~~~
tibbon
Interesting.

I'm also scratching my head as to why we're now ~3 (maybe 4 counting ITA?)
levels deep for purchasing of airline tickets? Hipmunk -> Orbitz -> ITA ->
Airline

That seems to be the sign of a broken system.

~~~
tomkarlo
Well, you can also do it in one layer: <http://google.com/flights>

There is a lot of "slack" in how travel is priced due to all kinds of
agreements about what rates you're allowed to show. That's partly why package
deals can be so good. These are not simple problems to solve, even in a best-
case scenario.

------
chc
The hard truth: If it isn't worth your time to buy a scale or measuring tape,
you aren't giving them enough business to be worth making all these expensive
changes.

This is like me walking into my local supermarket and asking them to replace
the meat section with a giant vegetarian foods section — yes, it would make me
personally overjoyed, but it probably wouldn't be a good business move.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Not to mention that the "fix" for this "problem" is simply to guess high.

Don't have a scale to weigh a package that feels about the same as a pound of
butter? Enter the weight as 5 lbs. They'll happily charge you more and deliver
it.

~~~
georgespencer
This is what I do, but then nobody's happy. I'm probably paying over the odds,
and they're probably shipping goods in a van which is underweight. They could
fit another parcel on there and make more money.

This actually formed part of my experience with UPS. When the guy said to me
"How much does this TV weigh?" I had no idea: the TV was in my parents' house
a few hundred miles away. And why the fuck should I have to weigh it? He
wanted my parents to take a heavy TV set and put it on some scales in order to
weigh it. When I told him to make it up he said "but we might get it wrong and
undercharge you!" I don't care. Just charge me a penalty or something.
Shipping is one of those things that I don't have any sort of inclination as
to how much a competitive price is.

~~~
tomkarlo
At this point, you're not looking for a carrier. You're looking for a moving
company, someone who comes to your house, wraps up the object, transports it
to the desired location and unwraps it. There are definitely companies in that
business, but UPS/Fedex/et al generally aren't, because that's not what their
customers want.

Amazon uses something similar to this if you order a TV from them - they have
someone who actually brings the TV into your house, unwraps it, connects it
and takes away the box.

~~~
georgespencer
No, I'm looking for a courier whose responsibility for the item extends to
packing it up for me. I don't have packing materials. I could obtain them, but
these guys are in the business. How many claims do they have to deal with for
goods damaged in transit every year? How many could be solved if a guy with a
few rolls of bubble-wrap and a pre-printed box of the right size wraps up the
item for you.

Again, ad nauseum, I am not in any way suggesting that UPS or FedEx should be
doing this.

~~~
tomkarlo
Here in the US, UPS, in fact, will do this for you.
([http://www.theupsstore.com/products-services/packaging-
shipp...](http://www.theupsstore.com/products-services/packaging-
shipping/pages/index.aspx)) They won't go to your location, but I think that's
more because there isn't sufficient demand for that service (at a profitable
level) than their not wanting to do that. You can also hire intermediary
services that will show up at your house, wrap an item and ship it via a
third-party carrier (transparent to you.) I've done that for large items that
had to be sent via rail, like furniture.

I know you're frustrated by folks saying that you're suggesting UPS or Fedex
do this, but your post title suggests that's what you're asking for, and it's
also rational to view it as more likely that those carriers would create this
service, or someone would create it as an overlay (MVNO-style) utilizing their
existing shipping networks, than creating an entire new shipping system - the
cost would just be astronomical to create a whole new transport network for
this.

------
jonstjohn
My big gripe right now with UPS is that the person who delivers our package
has put us on her black list, and I've tried several times to get things
sorted out to no avail.

Here's what happened: I ordered a fairly pricey vacuum for my wife that was on
sale and had it shipped to our house. I received a notification that it was on
our porch at about 2:30 PM and arrive home about 4:00 PM. There was no package
there. We reported it as missing. The company we bought it from shipped us a
replacement immediately.

A week or so later, the UPS driver comes by and tell us that b/c the vacuum
went missing, we'll have to sign for every package. Since then, every single
package, big or small, requires a signature IN PERSON (not just sign the piece
of paper). We've asked her to leave it on our back porch, allow us to sign,
etc, but apparently this is some kind of punishment.

The thing that annoys me is that they left a $400 package with the contents
clearly displayed on the outside on our front porch before, and now need a
signature for a $10 book.

Anyways, I'm pretty much fed up. On top of it, we gets lots shipped to us
since we're Amazon Prime customers. Arrgh! No accountability with these
services, and when you buy something, most of the time you can't specify the
delivery service :(

~~~
micaeked
that sounds reasonable. seems like they had to pay for your missing $400
package, and they would like to prevent that from happening again. i see no
problem here

~~~
jonstjohn
I think the main problem here is that I can no longer release liability for
smaller packages (which appears to be a punishment by the driver who probably
caught a lot of flak and not a necessity). Most of my packages are < $50 and
I'm not too concerned with losing one of those to theft. I'd happily sign a
release on those. On the other hand, with this particular > $400 package,
neither the shipper nor UPS decided it was necessary to require a signature.
As to what happened to the package? Who knows, maybe somebody stole it, maybe
it was mis-delivered and not recovered.

------
laserDinosaur
I had to take a day of work to get a package from a delivery service - How in
the WORLD is that easier than just posting it? What possible benefit did that
add? Then, it turns out they "Can only estimate to about 2 days", so when the
guy didn't show I had to take a SECOND day off work. Then, when he couldn't
find the buzzer I was told I had to drive to the warehouse (1 hour away, only
accessible by car off a highway, which I don't have) or it would be sent back
overseas.

I have never used a service as bad or as useless as UPS. It boggles my mind
that they even exist.

~~~
luser001
I feel for you (had a computer broken by UPS when moving many years ago).

I just have things shipped to my work address if I care about the item [esp.
things like electronics, which can be damaged when the delivery guy
throws^Wdelivers :) them.].

------
pwny
What annoys me the most is their working hours. You're delivering stuff at
people's homes and yet your truck drivers only work something like 9-5. Guess
what, other people work too, they're obviously not going to be home in that
time window. I really think there's solid business in it for someone to set up
a location where people can get their stuff shipped, then that company sends a
guy on a freaking bike to get it to the recipient in the next hour (after
notifying them they got the package) wherever said recipient is at that
moment. I'd pay premium for that.

~~~
dcminter
I've often thought that an alliance with Starbucks or one of the other all-
pervasive coffeeshops would work well. ${courier} delivers to a locker at
${coffeeshop} during working hours. Customer picks up from ${coffeeshop} on
their way home using their loyalty card to swipe the locker open.

${coffeeshop} gets a customer incentivized to get a customer loyalty card and
who may well want to grab a hot beverage while they're looking over their new
purchase. Plus whatever deal they figure out with the delivery company.

[Edit:] I like the suggestion in one of the comments above for Ocado (or
presumably one of the other home-delivery supermarkets) to tackle this
problem. That would seem to be an even better fit - companies who expect to
deliver to the home out of business hours and who are far better at honouring
their timeslots. Of course for these customers the recipient is the customer -
which probably explains the radical difference in service.

~~~
parfe
Amazon Locker
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200689010)

~~~
dcminter
Sounds great in theory. In practice I've not yet seen the option on checkout
(which is apparently the only point at which you can search for suitable
lockers).

~~~
parfe
If you read the page you'd see the second section titled "Finding an Amazon
Locker Location"

has a link "Search for a Locker"

Also, the second section opens with:

Amazon Lockers are currently located in Seattle, New York, and London. If you
live in Seattle or New York, you can search and select a locker location
during the checkout process or _in Your Account by following these steps
below._

I'm not sure what your complaint is.

If you still don't understand, try reading the link.

~~~
dcminter
I'm in the UK as is the original poster.

I'm not complaining, I'm just unable (at present) to do this. Even if I could
search for a locker I still wouldn't be able to use one without the option on
checkout. When/if Amazon roll this out further it will be delightful.

"If you read the page", "If you still don't understand". I did, I do. Please
note HN policies on politeness.

~~~
parfe
> _In practice I've not yet seen the option on checkout (which is apparently
> the only point at which you can search for suitable lockers)._

You replied with a blatantly untrue statement proven wrong by the very post
you replied to. A link to search for drop points is right there. Do not tell
me to coddle to someone who willfully posts incorrect information out of
laziness or carelessness.

Especially when I was giving you _exactly_ what you were looking for. It just
doesn't happen to be in your part of your country at the moment which
apparently is enough for you to come whine about it.

------
bitserf
Something that seems universal: dropping off a courier delivery card without
actually attempting delivery.

Why is this? Do they do this more often for residential addresses? Are they
incentivised monetarily to power through as many "deliveries" as possible in a
day, and residential deliveries take up too much time?

I don't understand it, it seems a failsafe way to get a recipient to enter
rage mode to drop off one of those cards when they've done something like
taken the day off to receive the item.

~~~
codesuela
my apartment is on the fourth floor and the regular couriers know that, that's
why only receive packages from small firms who are delivering first time

------
sazzyfrank
i love this glad its not just me who was nearly crying with frustration at
DPD. avoid avoid avoid. heres what i emailed. lets see wot happens. >>>

quite seriously i have never come across a Company who is so appalling - i
really hope there is someone on this at a senior level at DPD. if the company
i worked at had vast majority on trust pilot scoring 1 some people would be
out of a job. do your drivers read the reviews? because they are the face of
DPD and should understand they are driving DPD customers away in droves.

heres my experience. if you have any ideas on how we get the parcel delivered
be delighted to hear. out of principle i will not come and collect it. i want
a driver to do the job they are paid to do.

1 get a text to tell us delivery slot. we are home all day so wait delivery.
doesnt arrive. look on tracker, driver says we are not in. blatant lie. if we
werent in wheres the calling card?

2 try and find a number to call dpd to complain. no numbers published. send an
email complaint form. no response. send another one. no response

3 get a text next day to say delivery that afternoon. we are home all day. no
delivery. go on tracker driver again says we wernt in but no card left.

4 by trying a number of google searches eventually get a dpd number. call sat
am. told offices close at 1 so call closed. i was phoning at 11

5 call dpd mon am. wait 20 mins eventually get through. explained driver twice
lied that we wernt in. operator said we must have given wrong address. advise
operator to not make assumptions and when looking on system she found that the
second driver had actually put that a gate was blocking the way in. this is a
gate that we and postman, dustman and other couriers open and drive thru with
no problem every day. in fact that same day another courier made a delivery so
dpd driver clearly inept. first driver proven to have lied as on your system
he said we wernt in. we were. he didnt leave a card. he didnt attempt delivery

6 was told delivery was rearrnaged but as i was at work could i leave the
calling card signed to say leave in secure place. i didnt have a calling card
i explained to the operator. was told i could leave a signed letter giving
authority to leave parcel in safe place.

7 wrote a letter to leave for driver confirming parcel could be left, signed
it and supplied my number. left this clearly displayed on porch window

8 came home to find that driver had been - 3rd time lucky! but hadnt left the
parcel even though they took the letter!!! left card saying sorry not in

9 phoned dpd again spoke to a very helpful Heather who agreed this was
unsatisfactory. while i was on the phone she typed up instructions which
covered every scenario we could think of - parcel must be left as 4th attempt,
customer not in but gives authority to leave, letter and card will be left to
confirm this, gate just needs opening then drive through, any problems finding
house call customer etc. she also said she was delivering messages direct to
depot to ensure message got through

10 i left a signed letter, a completed card, huge letters pointing to this
saying "for dpd" left notes at the gate as well. left for work thinking surely
this time.....

11came home no delivery. went on tracker. driver couldnt find property and
didnt think to phone me for directions

so 4 attempts. no sign of parcel. drivers clearly useless. Any ideas? Sarah

Sent from my iPad

------
bastian
Finally, somebody talks about this! ;) We're fixing many of these problems for
local deliveries with: www.postmates.com

~~~
nottombrown
I've used postmates several times and have been consistently impressed with
the quality of the experience. The polar opposite of traditional parcel
delivery.

------
SideburnsOfDoom
Yes, Parecelfarce are notoriously rubbish and regularly pull stunts like the
one you describe. (google "parcelfarce" and insist on that spelling. I get
"about 428,000 results" returned ...)

I know a few people who would happily dance on their grave if another company
were to put them out of business.

My first thought was a shipping window that narrows as it gets closer. I.e. On
Monday you can predict arrival on "Friday" with 95% confidence. At Friday 11am
you might be able to predict arrival at Friday 11:30 - 11:45 with 95%
confidence.

Also, is it possible to apply a technical fix to the social problem of the
driver writing an incorrect time on a slip? I.e. insist on it being a printed
slip? It's probably more common that they send the slip without making a
serious effort to ring the doorbell and deliver.

~~~
georgespencer
That happened to me with UPS. I watched from my upstairs window as the guy got
out of his van, went to my front door, and waited. Then he put the slip
through and left. I ran down and asked why he hadn't knocked or rung the
doorbell. He blamed a faulty doorbell. I rang the doorbell and it worked. He
grinned. "Fair cop!" Unbelievable.

~~~
elemenohpee
I don't get it, if he's not saving any time or effort, what's in it for the
driver to not deliver your package?

~~~
georgespencer
He doesn't have to speak to me, log the parcel, sign anything, etc.

------
dcminter
While this is perhaps more rant than insight it's quite true that in the UK
the courier firms are painful for individuals to use (not so much a problem
for businesses I think).

The classic example - I'm single, work during normal business hours and as a
freelancer I am reluctant to take high-value time off work to collect low-
value items from couriers who do not honour their delivery slots. It's
basically impossible for me to receive parcels from most courier firms.

The problem is that the people paying the courier firms are not generally the
people feeling this pain.

~~~
georgespencer
Apologies for that. I wrote most of it yesterday, but then today I've had
renewed frustrations with the final major courier I haven't yet used (my
safety) and I just got pissed.

You're right that it's broken for individuals in the main. I'm in the office
10 hours a day: if I get items shipped to me there, or picked up from me
there, that means schlepping it all the way to the office / from the office.
So I was pleased to be able to choose a two hour window at which to be at
home. Of course the guy turned up half an hour early. It makes perfect sense.

My friend had the best quote on this: "All courier services make normal people
seem like Larry David-level assholes."

~~~
dcminter
I was half inclined to flag it but let's just say I recognized your tone of
mind :-)

------
brice-
I fully expect Amazon to purchase UPS or FedEx and do just this. Amazon has to
much on the line when it comes to shipping and as things stand now the entire
process is inefficient. Amazon would be looking at $MM in savings by
integrating one of the major international shipping companies.

The individual consumer will only benefit from Amazon's customer service
influence when it comes to shipping procedure and policies.

------
weinzierl
"Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers" . In my opinion
the "Someone" must be the online retailers. When I see to which great lengths
Amazon goes to provide a great customer experience, and then it's all
destroyed by the courier - it hurts. The only thing that prevents me from
buying online instead of going to a brick and mortar store is shipping.

~~~
georgespencer
It seems like there are a lot of great people shipping locally. In London
there are a whole bunch of same-day and same-hour couriers. At my old agency
we'd order DVDs for directors from the HMV on Oxford Street and a bike courier
would bring it to us. There's a great courier service who launched with Argos
recently called Shutl. But scaling this to a national or international
business is hard.

As always I'd like to see an Apple solution to this problem. A premium price
paid for a premium experience.

~~~
18pfsmt
Would these local couriers not be able to handle the first-leg in order to get
your package to one of the larger carriers?

~~~
georgespencer
I'm in London, so access to a larger carrier isn't an issue (in theory). I can
literally see the Parcel Force depot in question from the top of my building.

On paper Parcel Force aren't that bad. They said they'd be here between 2-4pm.
I got home in plenty of time for that. The problem is that their driver lied
to me, them and then turned up in a grumpy huff at 7:00pm and snatched the
parcel away from me with an asshole stare.

You know what would have been quicker and only twice as expensive? Flying the
damned thing to Glasgow myself. £60 on the plane and 3 hours to get there and
back, vs. a 5 hour wait in my house.

------
freshfey
I agree completely, a little hack for #5 however:

Call the courier company and ask for the drivers (direct, cell) number, he can
give you a 30 min. window. He even told me that is always better to get the
drivers number, because the central often times has no clue where the driver
starts his route.

Has worked multiple times with FedEx here in Switzerland.

------
BenjaminDyer
Good post.

The logistics industry (in the UK at least) is in utter turmoil. I have about
10k ecommerce merchants using our platform and I hear these points on a daily
basis.

Speaking to a few logistics and delivery providers recently they tell me the
cost of delivering this service has tripled in the past three years. However
this hasn't been passed onto the merchant / customer, this industry is living
in an artificial bubble and I predict its going to pop. The truth is the price
has gone down as companies such as Yodell have arrived to disrupt the space
with rock bottom prices (and rock bottom service), this puts huge pressure
onto the other providers who are dropping services at a rate of knots.

Its not an easy thing to fix, especially as there are so many interconnected
services and companies.

~~~
da_n
I just got a parcel from Yodell for the first time the other day, are these
the same guys as Hermes? The driver was the same and the service was piss-poor
(missed first delivery despite being in at the time, was left a blank card,
phoned premium rate phone number which was automated saying minimum 10 minute
wait, instead opting not to pay went online and re-scheduled delivery which
was not honoured, parcel finally arrived randomly at 9 o'clock at night driver
just chucked in the porch and drove off).

~~~
BenjaminDyer
No Hermes is a different company, same piss poor attitude.

------
thalur
With any luck Ocado will step up for this one, it seems an ideal fit with
their current business model.

------
mmccauley
Totally hear you on all accounts! This is a problem that needs a serious
solution - I'm working on an idea right now to solve it, BufferBox
(corporate.bufferbox.com). Essentially we allow shipping to self-serve kiosks
and when a parcel arrives, an email is sent to the user with a PIN code so
they can pick it up 24/7 on their schedule.

In the UK, there is a service that may be able to help you on the receiving
end - myByBox (my.bybox.com). Hopefully it has help you out a bit!

We're working to bring a similar service to North America because we believe
it's essential for eCommerce to grow to the next level. We've been running a
pilot project to gather some data (bufferbox.com) and now we're working to
expand.

------
da_n
I live in the UK and I have had things delivered a few times by a company
called Hermes, or as I like to call them, Herpes. It is literally a joke that
this company is legal, I have complained to every retailer that uses them and
often will not purchase from them again if they chose to use Hermes just to
save a few pennies. There is no telephone number, parcel tracking is a nice
work of fiction, and if you paid extra for next day and they use Hermes expect
anything up to 10 days. There should be much more oversight and heavy fines
for running shoddy operations like this.

------
jwilliams
Courier companies have been optimised around a B2B experience -- where it
doesn't matter what time it's delivered, because there is always someone at
the front desk.

Drives me insane too. A failed delivery must have a reasonable cost in terms
of time/money/capacity. I'm surprised there hasn't been an economic driver to
sort this out.

Someone like Amazon needs to get in on the game - either with their own
service, or partner with someone. If any company is suffering because of a
crappy courier experience, it'll be them.

------
rwmj
I always think the answer to some part of this is some sort of secure parcel
box / "bin" outside the house which has a barcode on it that the courier can
scan in order to verify they delivered the parcel. An advanced bin could have
a small camera to photograph the courier to provide verification from both
sides.

The non-advanced version surely wouldn't cost more than $20 to sell, and this
(small) cost is pushed to the end users, in return for which they get
convenient and secure deliveries when they're not at home.

~~~
roc
The trick comes from the various sizes and shapes of things people have
shipped.

The more plausible approach would be to run a store-front with convenient
hours near residential areas to make up for people being unable to have, say,
a large or expensive item shipped to their home while they're at work.

This store-front could have a secure 24x7 vestibule with lockers of various
sizes/shapes to accommodate most general packages, each locked with a
combination emailed to the recipient. (or perhaps a central unit would allow a
credit card to be swiped, or NFC device read to unlock the appropriate box.)

Very large or awkward packages could be kept behind the counter. Staffing this
from, say, 8 to 8 wouldn't be terribly expensive and it's a service you could
easily charge another dollar or so for. To say nothing of additional shipping
charges you could capture, from having real human beings available to help
people ship things.

You would, essentially, be re-inventing a US post office with better hours and
on-demand PO Boxes of interesting dimensions.

~~~
fr0sty
This is being tested by Amazon in the US, actually.

<http://mashable.com/2011/09/06/amazon-locker-system/>

~~~
dhugiaskmak
It sounds like there's some competition, too.

[http://www.mobile-apps-news.com/bricks-vs-clicks-
shoprunner-...](http://www.mobile-apps-news.com/bricks-vs-clicks-shoprunner-
takes-aim-at-amazons-lockers-with-pickupzone-acquisition)

------
dirkdeman
I have one more itch to scratch: please let me pay with me debit/credit card!
The other day a shipment from GLS arrived. This actually was the second
shipment, because they claim I wasn't home when they tried the first time.
Even thou i WAS home, sitting in the kitchen all afternoon to intercept the
GLS guy so that he wouldn't wake up our little one...

When GlS came the second time I was at home. I just don't have a couple
hundred bucks worth of cash in my pocket. I mean, come on! Cash only? Really
GLS?

------
ios84dev
Why don't you just drop your packages off at a UPS Store? They seem to do
almost all of that stuff for you, obviously for a premium.

Obviously you can't do that from your home, but you probably don't have all
the tools to do a lot of stuff at your home and you have to go somewhere for
it. Plus, if you are going to/from work in the first place, it seems like a
pretty trivial thing to do. Stop off to drop a package off, or if their
website says you have a package, pick it up.

~~~
georgespencer
Because I live in the UK, and the nearest UPS Store is on the Eastern Seaboard
of the USA.

~~~
giergirey
I think "Mail Boxes Etc" is probably our UK equivalent of UPS Stores. Amongst
other things, they can do packaging and labelling and act as a broker across
the various couriers. I've had good experiences with MBE but I've only used
them to ship high value items internationally - I don't know how cost
effective they are for other stuff. And obviously, they're still at the mercy
of the couriers (though you can at least tell them which ones you want or
don't want to use).

------
18pfsmt
Sounds like you all have it rough in the UK. I wonder if UPS' acquisition of
TNT will change any of this.

For me personally, this problem is solved as I can leave packages on my door
(or have them left there) all day without issue. I also have a UPS store and
Fedex Kinkos within 1.5 miles and 2 miles, respectively. I'm not sure if I
have ever heard of anyone having packages picked up for personal (rather than)
business purposes.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
If you have a PO Box, the USPS will also take package deliveries. You have to
sign up for the service and use the address of the Post Office and they will
leave a notice in your box when the package gets there.

It's a way to get deliveries from companies that won't ship to PO boxes. My
local PO told me about it a few months ago, but I haven't had the need to use
it.

------
lowlevel
I once had to keep an airport taxi waiting at my front door while the courier
(purolator) was on their way to deliver my airline tickets. I totally agree
with almost all of this list.. You forgot the whole customs mess though. I've
had things stuck in customs for weeks because the department of homeland
security had some new forms I need to fill out to ship a CD-ROM into the US.

~~~
georgespencer
Fixing customs is a big ask, and there will always be unavoidable amounts of
red tape because you can't just vote with your feet and go to another customs
provider.

It would be possible, although insanely difficult, for someone to disrupt the
courier market.

The box which I mention in my OP, which was due to be picked up between 14:00
and 16:00 GMT (still sat in my hallway now at 17:30 GMT, despite being
"guaranteed" to get to Scotland by 12:00 noon tomorrow) is costing me £30 to
ship. I'd have paid double that to someone who makes my life _simpler_.

Now looking at my third phone call to the courier in question just to find out
what they've accomplished during the last two hours of radio silence in
pursuit of operation "Get a man in a van to pick up his phone then go to an
address on his route".

------
oliciv
I have something currently on it's way to me via Interlink (UK). They sent me
an SMS message yesterday to confirm the date, with options to reply via SMS to
change it (reply 1 for tomorrow, 2 for the day after, 3 for the day after that
etc). This morning I had another SMS message and an email to confirm the
driver's name and a one hour window for delivery. That solves number 5.

------
mynegation
I do not usually ship stuff, but can see how this can be annoying. ##5-9 are a
very big pain point for me as there is usually no one at home during work
hours and delivering to work is not really an option (large downtown office
tower with security systems and such).

Sometimes I wish I could order a delivery to some local outlet (like FedEx has
these Kinko stores)

~~~
akira2501
You can.. at least I do with UPS all the time. It's called "hold for pickup."
You put your name and phone number on the package, but use the address of the
UPS shipping facility itself.

When the box arrives there, they give me a call, let me know it's waiting, and
that I have 5 days to come pick it up.

Yea.. I do have to drive to pick it up, but at least I'm not at the mercy of
the driver's schedule. Once it's there, I can get it when it's convenient for
me.

------
suhailpatel
Number 5 and Number 6 are handled exceptionally well by DPD in the UK. I don't
send stuff but when I'm ordering something by courier I try my hardest to shop
at websites that ship with DPD. You get a text message before they arrive and
never had a delivery fall outside the one (or two) hour window they give and
their customer service people are not morons

~~~
georgespencer
Oh wow, going to try them before I pack things up at my current startup and
change industries. Thanks :)

~~~
sazzyfrank
nooooooooooo dont try DPD. look at trust pilot first. average score 2 out of
10 from 880 posts. they are truly awful

------
binarymax
Ah yes, I posted a similar grievance last year:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1879251>

Apparently shutl.co.uk is closest to helping out with this, but unless we can
get major retailers to change, we are stuck.

------
djernie
Most of your questions are already covered by Deal Services:
<http://www.dealservices.nl/en/home>

------
ciphergoth
This is an incentives problem and won't change for as long as we blame the
delivery companies. Blame the company who _chose_ the delivery company.

------
Tinned_Tuna
I will point out that at least #5 is "solved" by DPD and Interlink Ireland to
a reasonable level of accuracy.

------
huhtenberg
That was a good read. Goes well with a Monday :)

------
reyven
welcome to japan - where all of the above has been solved by couriers like
sagawa and kuroneko yamato ;)

------
rprasad
What you are demanding is incredibly expensive, especially #4 and #6. #2 would
necessitate an incredible amount of arbitrage (i.e., increase prices even
further) because it would severely impact their ability to maximize parcels
shipped. #5 is available from both UPS and FedEx...for additional cost (on the
recipient). If you really want #9, then you may end up with $100/parcel
pricing.

Of course, there are companies that do everything you indicate you want. But
if you don't know who those companies are, you clearly can't afford them.
Alternatively, you can use the USPS, which does almost everything you describe
above except #5.

~~~
georgespencer
> What you are demanding is incredibly expensive, especially #4 and #6.

Useful tracking needn't be expensive. The delivery driver knows when he's
heading to my house. Even just telling me his lat/long at the point when he
leaves the delivery prior to mine in a text message would allow me to usefully
calculate where my parcel is.

> #2 would necessitate an incredible amount of arbitrage (i.e., increase
> prices even further) because it would severely impact their ability to
> maximize parcels shipped.

I'm fine with that. Like I said elsewhere, this is costing me £30 to send. I'd
have happily spent £100 to get it done fuss-free.

> #5 is available from both UPS and FedEx...for additional cost (on the
> recipient).

Again, fine with additional cost. I've used it from UPS before and it didn't
work.

> If you really want #9, then you may end up with $100/parcel pricing.

I'm more than happy to pay it.

> Of course, there are companies that do everything you indicate you want. But
> if you don't know who those companies are, you clearly can't afford them.

Yes, you're right, I'm not wealthy enough to be able to afford a hassle-free
shipping experience. I know of plenty of companies who will bike a parcel to
anywhere in the UK for me directly for an amount I could afford. I could speak
directly to the driver and have him call the recipient when he arrives. That's
not the point.

The point is that it takes 90 minutes to fly to Scotland from London. It would
cost me about £80 return.

I've been sitting at home for 5 hours waiting for this package to be picked
up. It is costing me £30 to send.

It cannot be the case that we live in a world where it is genuinely more
convenient for me to fly by plane for three hours in order to give someone a
box than to have a professional courier do it for me.

~~~
tomkarlo
>> #2 would necessitate an incredible amount of arbitrage (i.e., increase
prices even further) because it would severely impact their ability to
maximize parcels shipped.

> I'm fine with that. Like I said elsewhere, this is costing me £30 to send.
> I'd have happily spent £100 to get it done fuss-free.

It's not enough that you want to pay £100... there have to be enough customers
willing to pay £100 to balance out the loss of customers who would pay £30 (as
well as the decrease in unit volume that would result), and there probably
aren't.

~~~
georgespencer
For the major couriers, there probably aren't. For a new courier service who
approach the market from the top up rather than the bottom down, who knows?

~~~
tomkarlo
At least here in the US, such services exist - there are high-touch courier
services that deliver same-day with very high service levels. They're also
very expensive and used by almost nobody other than bankers, lawyer and
advertising firms that can expense the costs to big corporate clients (and
even then, the firms will generally use a normal carrier unless the package is
very timely or sensitive.)

Most people don't want to pay the $6 or so for UPS shipping... Paying $200
would restrict your customers to a very small part of the market shipping very
high-value goods (jewelry, bearer bonds?)... I wonder if even armored car
shipping is that expensive on a per-item basis.

~~~
georgespencer
There are a few in the UK but it's usually inner-city or highly personal: they
don't make use of overnight vans so for me to pay for something to go to
Scotland from London via one of these guys is going to cost me a whole lot
more than $200.

I disagree. Trite comparison, but: "Most people don't want to pay the $999 for
a Pentium PC… paying $1999 would restrict your customers to a very small part
of the computer market." If you offer the quality I bet it's possible to make
a really profitable business out of it. Think how many times these items are
important: heck, I just wanted my TV so I could play Battlefield 3, but I'd
have paid more than I did to get it sent to me. How much would people pay to
not have a crummy experience with a courier if they used a courier a couple of
times in a year?

Not suggesting I know the answers, but I think it's an interesting area for
innovation.

~~~
tomkarlo
I don't disagree that folks would pay more for a better experience, but I
think they'd pay a few bucks - maybe up to double. Not 10X. Paying $200 for
shipping would be like paying $10,000 for a PC to play BF3. Most people who
can spend money like that have someone who takes care of their shipping and
receiving, because their time is valuable.

Consider this: for $50, you could probably get someone who lives on your
street to sit around all day waiting on your behalf for your package to
arrive.

------
bashzor
I don't know where you order your stuff, but I haven't had any of these
problems. The only thing I can really agree with (even though I haven't had it
myself) is the "being held in depot because you didn't stay home all day long
to receive it"-issue.

Also I think it's fairly normal to require an address when you sign up--you
usually sign up if you want to order something.

~~~
georgespencer
The "where you order stuff" part is irrelevant.

It's the shippers who are at fault. I have used TNT (through Apple Store
Online); FedEx (my choice), UPS (my choice), DHL (my choice) and today Parcel
Force (again my choice) to ship things.

The best one was UPS. They couldn't get their heads around the fact that I
wanted to ship something from my parents' place to my new place. "So can you
just tell me what the dimensions of the TV are?" "I told you. It's not here in
front of me. I don't know. It's about a 30" screen." "What's the depth?" I
DON'T KNOW OR CARE. Normal people do not know these things. Make me pay £5
extra for each piece of information I don't know. Just pick it up and take it
to where I want it.

------
hackermom
"We currently do not ship internationally", anyone? That message right there,
when I'm shopping online, annoys me to no end. Clever way of doing business.

~~~
PeterisP
Even more, if they know my address (since I'm a repeat customer and am logged
in) and they won't ship some items to me because of my country - is it really
too much to ask to mark those items clearly in the item selection? And filter
search results based on which items I can actually buy?

Even Amazon currently just says "can't ship to this address" at the very end
of checkout. What am I supposed to do at this point of web interface - quickly
move to another country and then input the new address?

------
BadBeedi
Or simply get out of Europe. It's burning anyway.

~~~
ChessyPig
./~ And the cities of Europe have burned before And they may yet burn again
And if they do I hope you understand That Washington will burn with them Omaha
will burn with them Los Alamos will burn with them ~/.

\- Billy Bragg, Help Save The Youth Of America

(if Europe is burning, everywhere is burning - where to get out to?)

