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Encountering an issue with the delivery of a package, I was asked to supply a safe delivery place. I told them that I wouldn’t give them that information – and here’s why.
The Invisible Doorbell
A while ago (in July 2023) I wrote a post called The Invisible Doorbell. I lamented the fact that most (but not all) deliveries made nowadays are what I call “hit-and-run”, in that the delivery driver puts the package on the floor outside my front door and then goes off to his next delivery. Whether or not they ring the doorbell (or knock on the door) tends to be pot luck.
Two years down the line, that situation has not improved. In fact, it’s got worse!
The curse of a similar address
I live in a house that has a name and a number, rather than a street name and number. My postal address consists of the house number and name (as there’s two of us houses with the same name), then the village, then the City and finally the postcode.
It’s like this:
2 Willowtree Villas
Tiddingdown
Stratford-Upon-Avon
CV37 1HW
It isn’t that (I made that up) but it demonstrates the address principle. In this example my only neighbour is 1 Willowtree Villas. Both my neighbour and I have signs depicting the Willowtree Villas nomenclature outside our houses, within easy eyeball range of anyone that passes on the road.
There are a few clumps of houses and cottages in my village (and in many villages around rural England) that have that type of nomenclature. Between two or three buildings there could be: some Acorn Cottages, some Granley Villas and some Springbank Rises.
And that’s all lovely and village-y and cosy sounding.
There’s another Willowtree Villas!
There is. And I bet there are plenty more Willowtree Villas dotted around England’s green and pleasant lands. Along with Acorn Cottages and any other number of duplicated names of clumps of rural housing.
Good job we’ve got postcodes though!
The postcode
This from Wikipedia:
A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal address for the purpose of sorting mail.
As of August 2021, the Universal Postal Union lists 160 countries which require the use of a postal code.
The postcode, or postal code, or zip code then, is a widely used mandatory method used in several countries, to identify the locations of groups of houses, businesses or locations.
In the UK, the modern methos of post codes was introduced in the 1950’s by the General Post Office, and has remained unchanged to this day. Nowadays, overseen by Royal Mail, of course.
The function then of the postcode is so that 2 Willowtree Villas in Tiddington, Stratford-Upon-Avon with its postcode of CV37 1HW can be clearly and accurately located – and what’s more to the point – not confused with 2 Willowtree Villas in Peascroft, Godalming with it’s postcode of GU3 8JW.
Maps are long gone!
Before smartphones, GPS and What Three Words, us mortals used to navigate using something called a map. This was a drawing (on paper) of entire areas of the English Countryside, marking every road, town, village, city and landmark around.
The problem with that was that you had to be extra sure where you were going, as maps didn’t list postal codes. You had to look those up in a book issued by the G.P.O. (The General Post Office)- a copy of which could usually be found in the local library. (This was how my Dad used to plan family holidays in the 1960’s!)
Imagine planning 120 parcel deliveries for a day, using a map and a book of postal codes! š³
Technology
Then along came GPS, smartphones, apps and Google/Apple maps and so on and so forth. It became very easy just to punch in the postcode and the app would guide you to the general vicinity of the destinationā¦ generally within three of four houses. The final part was looking for a house sign marking where you were supposed to be going.
Easy, right?
Apparently not
No, apparently not. I’ve had seven or eight deliveries go to the wrong location in the past two years alone. I know where the other location is: it’s only about four miles away, but it is called Willowtree Villas. The postcode however, is (as you would expect) completely different.
I’m going to use Evri (formerly Hermes) as my real-world example (the picture for this post is an Evri delivery person, co-incidentally on purpose). I wanted to make perfectly clear that it’s not only Evri that has delivered my goods to the wrong place – Yodel, UPS and Amazon have also done it. I’m using Evri in this example, as the delivery person at the time was the most prolific at getting it wrong.
Tracking
But first a sidenote. One of the better things to emerge out of all this digital GPS-orientated technology is the ability to track your parcel as it’s en-route and the introduction of delivery time-windows. It’s very helpful when you know you want to be doing some work outside, for example – you know your package is going to be delivered in a certain defined timeslot, so you can make yourself available to receive the delivery at that time.
It’s also helpful when it goes to the wrong place, as there’s usually evidence: a picture – or in Evri’s case GPS co-ordinates. Helpful, but frustrating.
It solely depends on the delivery person
An obvious statement, but true enough. The Evri delivery person that kept delivering my packages to the wrong address clearly wasn’t aware of the significance – or the function – of a post code. On one occasion, I saw that the delivery went to the wrong place and duly reported it and got a refund. A few hours after that, the Evri delivery person knocked on my door with the delivery that she’d taken to the wrong place. I explained that I saw that and had reported it as undelivered and she should return it to sender. She said that she couldn’t understand why she’s delivered it to the other Willowtree Villas, she’d never done that before. I didn’t have the heart to point out that she’d done it at least three times previously.
She didn’t last long in the job and another person took over her delivery route.
And now for something completely different
Not only does the new delivery person know where I live, they can read a postcode. On top of that (and I know this, because I’ve had a chat with them), they knock on the door and actually wait for a response before handing over the parcel. If they can’t deliver it, they’ll put a note through the door and try again a bit later on.
Which is exactly Now that’s how it used to be, pre-covid for the most part – and that’s the service that all delivery operators should return to.
Safe delivery places
All of the bellyaching above leads me to the actual point of this post: most delivery companies now offer the choice to specify a safe place for delivery – and most delivery companies encourage you to specify them, especially if you use one of their apps. I can fully understand why they encourage it: it’s less time for the delivery person to just drop a parcel off and run on to their next delivery. Less time spent, more time delivering, more revenue for the delivery company.
Which is all very well, as long as the person doing the delivery delivers it to the right address. You can specify any safe place (next to shed, in front of gate, behind garage etc.), but you can almost guarantee that most houses in the UK have sheds, gates and garages.
And that’s the reason I don’t think it’s a good idea to specify any safe delivery place. I want the delivery person to knock on my door and wait for me to receive my parcel, in person.
First world problems?
Does it matter though? Of course not. I’m ordering stuff that I don’t already have, after all. If it gets delivered to the wrong place, it’s not really a big deal, other than the delay caused by not having what you ordered and having to go through the process of getting a refund, or a redelivery.
The only thing it costs me is time and the frustration of having to claim a refund or rearrange a replacement. And yes, I could go and buy whatever it is from an actual physical shop.
But still.
