I worked in a military post office for a few years and we were always shocked at what didn’t require a signature. Guy ordered a $5,000 camera…no signature required. Happened it all the time.
That said, when I lived in Cape Canaveral, FL, which is a slightly sketchy neighborhood, almost all delivery companies required a signature. Except OnTrac, who were more than willing to leave your $500 package on your porch in the rain.
Heh, about that… I ordered a six pack of Christmas Ale to be shipped across the country this holiday and the company was very adamant about requiring an adult signature or being unable to deliver. It sat on the recipient’s porch for a day (surprisingly unscathed) because UPS did one of their patented knock and drops.
I have no problems with UPS or fedex. My complaint is Amazon’s shitty “Lasership” service. Whenever I have a package shipping Lasership, I know it’s going to be late, and even when it rarely comes on the correct day it’s delivered at like 8PM.
As long as we are relating Amazon delivery stories:
A bit over a week ago I ordered some toothpaste from them. "Guaranteed delivery by Thursday, January 12 " it says. Nothing arrives Thursday. Nothing arrives Friday. I go back to Amazon and it says “Shipment delayed due to delivery to wrong shipping depot” or something like that, and it says my box went to New Jersey instead to Michigan. With a new delivery date of January 18.
The box was delivered to my front porch the next morning, January 14.
I worked for UPS for a bit and some people go exemptions to the “rules” by visiting or calling the terminal manager. These addresses would be loaded into the system accordingly and the drivers were generally familiar.
Doesn’t work with everything, of course.
I have never been able to get to talk to the local UPS people. Only ever the national call center. Since I primarily get packages from Amazon I’ve had Amazon stick a thing on my address or whatever that says to leave it if there’s no response and not to redirect (since apparently the current UPS policy is to redirect to an arbitrary Access Point after one delivery attempt without so much as asking the customer and there’s also no setting to have them not do that.) and it seems like that’s been successful, but it’s hard to tell. The next change in driver could easily be back to not getting packages.
Of course, if this house thing goes through, it should be way less of an issue.
I was surprised not to get my expected on the porch delivery today.
Then I am walking the dog tonight, and see some moron left it on the road, under my mailbox. Glad that the projected heavy rain and 60mph winds were bit delayed tonight…
On the freaking road?? Honestly…
I got a prime pantry box a few months back that you could hadly call a “box”. It was more a loose collection of cardboard pieces and soda cans that had escaped.
Amazon refunded the cost of the entire box though, and the next ones weren’t quite so destroyed.
When I ordered a big yoga mat for my mom for Xmas, it came from Walmart as all the sides of a large corrugated cardboard box taped onto the regular cardboard box the yoga mat came in, except the mat’s box was slightly larger than the exterior one, so you could see it peeking through at all the seams.
It was. . . something else, alright. Almost like armor plating.
This seems like the best thread to drop this, but this is a great analysis by a guy who does a lot of business with Amazon. It’s basically why he thinks Amazon is unassailable at this point, and it’s not for the reasons that have been discussed before.
That is a fascinating article, Woolen. I never realized the true genius of productizing their internals.
Yes, an interesting read. I enjoyed that. ygg.
Really interesting article - by opening up the APIs they drive a sort of Agile continuous improvement into their whole process, and they prevent their services from getting crufty and outdated.
What the Hell did Amazon do to my recommendations?
List is missing, bunch of sub categories,which seem really inaccurate.
I always enjoyed browsing the list as if I was in a actual bookstore…
In Canada, Amazon Prime has been suffering because of a last mile courier they’re using here called Intelcom.
haha, i hadn’t noticed before but I have a few screwy sections to.Men’s shoes, golf equipment… wait a minute, I did buy a few golf-tees to fix my closet. Dang it. Now it thinks I like guy stuff.
“I feel you,” as the saying goes: one time I made the mistake of watching a video on YouTube regarding the supposed “social justice warrior” influence on Mass Effect Andromeda (because the heroine “wasn’t hot enough” as a result), and to this day I get suggestions for scary “men’s rights” themed videos. Ugh.
With all the odd shopping recommendations you’ve been getting lately, it’s obvious the internet wants you to be a white male.