Yes, they can. You yourself said that there might be an extra charge for these services, a financial disincentive. They could give people a slight discount, a financial incentive, to avoid home delivery or to schedule it ahead of time.
Of course there are people who don’t keep up with the latest and greatest in technology, but they great thing about technology is the scalability. For example, when I mentioned phone numbers, I was thinking texting, not calling. Lots of industries use texting nowadays. You can give your phone number to airlines and they will text you when your flight is delayed or changes status. Now, you’re an old fuddy-duddy who doesn’t even know what texting is? Fine, but once the system is in place, it doesn’t cost them anything to try. They can try to text you, nothing happens, no skin off their back, they attempt the home delivery. But lots of other people get the text, open it up, say “oh, I need to redirect that package,” and do so, saving their delivery drivers time and money. Same thing for email. I and lots of people get a notification on our smartphone every time we get an email.
As I said above, they could be more active about it, emailing and/or texting everyone in advance of delivery, trying to get them to take advantage of the option. Right now it only happens if the recipient himself gets the idea to do it.
Last I heard, there was a charge to have it delivered to a store, but if you have it held for pickup at the local shipping depot (the hub from which the delivery trucks leave every day,) there’s no charge.
Also, what I’m proposing wouldn’t displease you. The default could still be to attempt delivery to the home on the first possible day, so if you didn’t respond to their query, that’s what they would do. They wouldn’t hold the delivery in limbo indefinitely while waiting for grandpa to fire up his fancy high-tech computer and checking one of those email thingies the kids are talking about these days. But people like me, who are never home during business hours, are displeased by the current system, wherein if we don’t remember to go online in advance and choose an alternate delivery option* (and potentially pay more money,) we don’t get our delivery until a full business day later than we otherwise would have.
*And like I said, I think one of the two, UPS or FedEx, though I don’t remember which one, doesn’t let you request alternate delivery options until after the first failed delivery attempt.
I think you’re overestimating the cost of a failed delivery. My guess is that it’s not much or else they would already be trying more actively to reduce the frequency of them.
Fed-Ex is totally hopeless. The UPS guy will leave a package on the back porch and stuff a note through our mail slot. Fed-Ex will make one attempt and leave a “final delivery notice” and a phone number to voice-mail hell. I will not use a retailer that refuses to use UPS or even snail mail (which leaves the package at a local substation–I’m alright that).
Interesting. I’ve had better experiences in general with FedEx than with UPS. But FedEx did disappoint me this time, in that I specifically marked only 1 of the 2 boxes as requiring signature, but they didn’t leave either of them.
I doubt that I am the only one here, but the reason the I have packages delivered is because I have difficulty getting to another location. I live in an apartment complex and the manager’s office accepts packages from all delivery services, but I am unable to get there easily to pick it up. Occasionally UPS or FedEx (usually UPS) will not bother to deliver to my door; delivering directly to the office is really a lot easier for them and maybe they can get off work earlier. Unfortunately that means I will have to wait for my packages for a day or more until I can get a friend over to pick the packages up.
When this happens, I always call the delivery service and complain. Hopefully I have gotten scores of delivery drivers fired or at least told how important customer service is.
If, as has been suggested, they stop delivering and make everyone go to a central location, I don’t know how I would ever be able to get my packages.
Bob
That has not been suggested. Read more carefully. What has been suggested is that at the outset of every shipment that requires a signature, they offer the recipient the option of diverting the package or providing additional delivery instructions.
After a couple of instances of packages either being damaged or ‘disappearing’ after delivery, I signed up for an option that allows UPS to deliver all my packages to the Mail Box store located next to the closest grocery store. I pick up whatever came during the week on Saturdays when I do my marketing. Safe, easy, tidy and no extra delivery charge.
Hell, even when we are home they don’t bother knocking. It’s a real pain in the ass. My husband worked from home for a few years and when we had a package coming he had to sit by the window and run out and stop the deliveryman because UPS or FedEx wouldn’t even try. They’d just sneak onto our porch, leave a failed delivery notice, and sneak away. We didn’t always manage to catch them. But if they’d even bothered knocking, someone would’ve been there to get the package.
So yeah, FedEx and UPS obviously know that home delivery is usually a no-go during business hours. And they just don’t care, because business delivery is where they money’s at. They do have an evening home delivery and that works great (did it for our mattress) but I expect it costs extra and it’s not offered as an option on hardly any shopping websites.
I’ve never liked shipping to work, and I don’t like driving out to get my package (the whole point is home delivery) so I always have to do the signed note on the door thing. In return, every delivery I get that requires a signature takes an extra day because of it. Frankly, I hate having a signature required and always choose no signature required if possible. I wish I could sign electronically or ahead of time so they could just leave it the day it’s supposed to arrive, but it’s not an option. I guess my tune would change if I had packages routinely stolen off my doorstep though (I never have).
OK, I might be overestimating something, but if so I think it must be the proportion of deliveries that are failed, not the cost of an individual failed delivery. I’m aware that one failed delivery is negligible, but I’m thinking 40% of the delivery driver’s day is taken up by failed deliveries. Maybe I’m wong about that. I mean, people in this thread–most recently Macca26–keep saying these companies don’t care about home deliveries, because that’s not where the money is. But it’s one thing to say that home deliveries just aren’t high-volume enough to be profitable like business deliveries, and another to say that you’d think these companies would want to minimize their home delivery losses. If they truly don’t care about home deliveries, you’d think they’d want to do something like what I’m suggesting, rather than continuing to attempt futile home deliveries. The only way that’s not true is if in fact failed home deliveries are a very small proportion of their total deliveries.
At my last place, I did have a few packages stolen, even ones that did not require a signature. Which just makes me desire even more to have the ability to customize delivery options before the first attempt.
No, that claim is nonsense. Given the size and growth rate of Amazon alone, nevermind the rest of online retail, and the fact that most of those packages are going to people’s homes, home delivery is a huge business. Amazon rarely requires signature, though, which is why this usually works for people, even if they’re away during the day.
The OP’s problem is entirely that he tried to ship something to an address where he knew in advance that nobody would be there to accept delivery. The fix? Don’t do that.
I have a highly variable schedule. I have 100% of my UPS and FedEx and USPS packages sent to my UPS store box address. Where the nice clerk signs for them and holds them until I’m next in town to pick them up.
Yes, I can use the websites of the various services to redirect the package. But the key is to *direct *it to the right place first so it doesn’t need redirecting while enroute.
What UPS and FedEx have been trying to tell people for years is: “Send the package where someone will actually be present to accept it.” They have to assume their customers are smart enough to actually do what’s in their own best interest. Sadly it seems some folks are slow learners.
As I said in the OP, I shipped two packages, with one requiring signature and the other one not. But they didn’t deliver either of them. Not delivering the one that was not supposed to require a signature is on them.
As for the other one, what can I say? As I said in the OP, I was kicking myself for having been absent minded about it. But there are a few reasons why, even though I could have planned better, I still wish their system were different:
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I was moving for a temporary work assignment, and all I really had was the address of an apartment. I didn’t know until I got out here whether I’d be able to receive packages at work, whether I’d be able to get away during the day, etc. I had to just ship it and hope for the best.
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I’ve never lived in an apartment complex with a front office before. I think that I was unconsciously assuming (though I didn’t nececssarily think about it explicitly) that if a package required signature and I wasn’t home, they’d just leave it with the front office. Turns out you have to specifically direct them to do that. OK, now I know.
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This is the biggest one: every time I’ve had a package requiring signature, and not been home for the delivery, and I called or went online to have the package held for pickup, it’s been ready for pickup by close of business that same day. So, I didn’t really think I needed to pay that much attention to it, thinking “well, if worst comes to worst, I’ll just swing by FedEx after work on Friday and pick it up.” This is the first time for me that a failed delivery has not been ready for pickup until the next business day. And it was just coincidence that this occurred on a Friday, leaving me without my stuff for a whole weekend, which made me more frustrated.
I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to sign for a delivery. None of the items I have ordered from Amazon required a signature. My UPS and FEDx people just leave them on my front porch if I am not home. I did have to sign for my contact lenses I got a couple of weeks ago, but prior to that it was easily 2 years. And both the UPS driver and I were surprised by that. Maybe because I live in a very rural neighborhood? Who knows but it hasn’t ever been a problem at our house.
And we get a LOT of deliveries here, between my wife and my daughter. So I am thinking it isn’t a huge deal as there aren’t that many signatures required.
An article on UPS residential delivery issues.
Alright, so maybe residential does take up more of their business than I thought (44%) - but home delivery is more difficult and more time consuming than business deliveries, costing more money per package. The article lays out how residential delivery is the part of their business that is hurting the most. Maybe some reworking is in the think-tank for them.
I prefer not to have packages delivered to my house so I have a permanent HAPU sign on my door. They leave a note acknowledging it. I’d rather stop off at the package center and pick it up after work or have it delivered to my office.
I kind of figured there would be a lot of signatures required since there’s so much technology to be bought nowadays. They always seem to require it for household/personal electronics. I designated one of my two packages as requiring a signature because my PS4 was in it.
Hospital Acquired Pressure Ulcer?
No, you’re thinking of FAPU, Freight Acquired Pressure Ulcer. HAPU is Hold for Pickup. Technically it’s Hold at Airport for Pick Up but that’s getting a little picky.