When is a door not a door?
I've been on a bit of a blogging break due to sheer workload. But here I am back again, and after a crazy month of work (and in anticipation of the summer to come) I decided to order another case of that wine I picked up on the way home from my safari.
Ordering the wine was relatively easy through the winery's website, and soon enough my wine was on the way. Except that all I received at my door was a little piece of cardboard, inviting me to go and collect my wine from the nearest post office.
To be fair, the card explained that someone had tried to deliver the wine, but that no-one was home. While I find it difficult to believe that a genuine attempt was made - at the time in question there were two people in the house along with a terrier keenly attuned to knocks on the door - I think there's a bigger issue here.
If you buy something online, chances are its going to need to be delivered to you. Almost without exception it seems, courier companies will try and deliver these items to you during office hours, when you're presumably in your own office. Which means that you'll be left with a piece of cardboard requiring you to make alternative arrangements to go and get your stuff. Even though you paid to have it delivered to your door, not the back door of the neighbourhood post office.
The convenience of shopping online is illusory if you end up having to get in your car and schlep down the road to pick up your purchases anyway. Granted, convenience is not the only advantage of online shopping - a far greater range or otherwise hard to get stuff is also generally available. However, if couriers are a significant beneficiary of the growth of online shopping, then they need to adjust the way they do to suit business-to-consumer transactions. Like delivering stuff when people are going to be home.
Otherwise they risk killing (or at least seriously maiming) the goose that's in the process of laying them a golden egg.
Ordering the wine was relatively easy through the winery's website, and soon enough my wine was on the way. Except that all I received at my door was a little piece of cardboard, inviting me to go and collect my wine from the nearest post office.
To be fair, the card explained that someone had tried to deliver the wine, but that no-one was home. While I find it difficult to believe that a genuine attempt was made - at the time in question there were two people in the house along with a terrier keenly attuned to knocks on the door - I think there's a bigger issue here.
If you buy something online, chances are its going to need to be delivered to you. Almost without exception it seems, courier companies will try and deliver these items to you during office hours, when you're presumably in your own office. Which means that you'll be left with a piece of cardboard requiring you to make alternative arrangements to go and get your stuff. Even though you paid to have it delivered to your door, not the back door of the neighbourhood post office.
The convenience of shopping online is illusory if you end up having to get in your car and schlep down the road to pick up your purchases anyway. Granted, convenience is not the only advantage of online shopping - a far greater range or otherwise hard to get stuff is also generally available. However, if couriers are a significant beneficiary of the growth of online shopping, then they need to adjust the way they do to suit business-to-consumer transactions. Like delivering stuff when people are going to be home.
Otherwise they risk killing (or at least seriously maiming) the goose that's in the process of laying them a golden egg.
posted by matt at
2:00 PM
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