Home Delivery Nightmares – Is The Solution Already Out There?
These days you’d be hard pushed to have never experienced a missed home delivery and the painful realisation that a trip down the depot is the only course of action. It’s just so easy to buy online, but the last mile of delivery remains the thorn in everyone’s side. So what are the latest delivery options available to help finally resolve this issue? Well, you might be surprised to hear that there are already a whole bunch of solutions currently in use and beginning to help out, if not completely eliminate the problem. I’ve tried to break them down into their various categories to make the explanation more straightforward, so here goes:
Locker banks
There’s only currently one major supplier targeting the consumer market with this solution, ByBox, but a few of the main carriers are now investigating how they can work with such solution providers to facilitate unmanned delivery addresses for all. These systems offer a great advantage for the carriers, as the issue of missed deliveries and the need for a redelivery due to the recipient being out is all but completely eliminated. In the future this will undoubtedly lead to cost savings for either the end consumer or the retailer making them a seemingly attractive solution for all parties.
However, it is worth noting that ultimately the consumer ideally wants their delivery made to their home address, rather than having to collect all their deliveries from a remote location. Perhaps this is acceptable, or perhaps it’s no better than an automated collection depot for all your parcels, instead of just the ones that failed delivery the first time?
Drop-off and Collection Shops
A number of providers exist for manned drop off and collection points. These range from large networks of locations such as Yodel’s (formally HDLN) Collect+ service operating at over 3000 locations across the UK within PayPoint stores, to operations run from local pubs or shops aiming to draw customers in to their own service through their parcel offering. The system works well and these networks are currently expanding, but they do still mean that the customer has to visit these locations to deposit their parcel or make their collection, much the same as in the locker bank model.
Basic Drop Boxes
Drop boxes come in a variety of flavours, the most basic being those that are lockable secure containers, left unlocked for the delivery man. Once the parcel is delivered the courier just shuts the container and manually locks it afterwards. There are more manufacturers of this type of solution than you may think with the leaders being the like of Hippo-Box, ParcelSafe and Parcelpod, the later offering an additional feature of a one-way flap allowing it to facilitate multiple deliveries before being emptied. Drop Boxes of this nature do offer a very effective solution for unattended home delivery and even if the delivery requires a signature, unofficially many couriers will still leave the parcel in such a secure place.
Technology Dropboxes
An extension of the basic drop box, there have been some clever innovations in this area. ParcelPal have developed a drop box solution that integrates with the owner’s mobile phone. An intercom is fitted close to the secure locker at their home address. When the intercom button is pressed the system makes a call to the owners mobile phone.
Once answered the owner can talk to the courier at the delivery address from their remote location and unlock the secure container using a simple keysequence on their mobile. Once opened the courier has access to a unique identifier within the container and can record this as Proof Of Delivery once the parcel has been placed inside. One major benefit of this solution is that it works equally well for collections as well as deliveries, a major plus point for any small time traders such as eBay Power Sellers or the like.
Another clever system is the 24-7 Box which again operates in much the same way as a basic drop box, but has a clever system offering another real alternative to a customer signature. When the delivery is made and the door locked, a unique delivery signature code is generated and displayed for the courier to record. Once the customer arrives home and sees that a delivery has been made, they must consciously open the see through cover to access the parcel. This clears the signature immediately, acting as a highly effective proof of delivery confirmation mechanism.
Timed Delivery
Timed delivery slots are something that’s been around for a while, but they’ve always consisted of either an evening, or Saturday morning slot and they’ve historically never been a cheap option. That is until recently when DPD introduced a free service offering the recipient a 1 hour delivery window via text message. If the timeslot is not convenient then alternative dates are given and these can be chosen simply be replying to the text. A great idea that is the envy of the other carriers, but it still relies on the recipient getting home for their chosen timeslot and for some people that’s just not possible on any day.
In this modern age where we can buy online at the click of a button, it’s a shame to see that the last mile of delivery still remains the elusive golden chalice, but as you can see there are some serious solutions either already expanding, or soon to come to market. Whether one method will take over, or whether there will be many differing solutions adopted by the various carriers is not clear at the moment, but what’s certain is that everyone realises the value of a complete home delivery service and no-one can afford to stand on the side-line waiting for it all to unfold. So watch this space – changes are afoot!
Tags: home delivery, home delivery service, home delivery solution, unattended home delivery
Comments (10)
Guiding the customers into having the delivery made to their place of work would sort the problem in most cases.
Lint – That solution did work really well for me a while ago, but I do remember the company complaining that they received more personal purchases than company ones and in the end were probably employing an extra person just to deal with these deliveries. They’d even had someone get a 3-piece suite delivered to work! It did work well for me though, while I worked for them, but unfortunately not all companies will be prepared to offer this facility for their employees.
The other problem with having goods re-directed to a place of work is that if you are purchasing on line with a debit/credit card due to fraud you will in most cases only be allowed to have an order delivered to the card holders homes address.
Quite right Carl. I do wonder how the likes of ByBox, who offer a lockerbank delivery location as an alternatine to home delivery, get around this one.
Guys
the credit card issue is not that big an issue nowadays, with the Verified by Visa and other security issues. It’s only companies who haven’t yet changed their procedures, or in some cases, carriers themselves, who won’t deliver to an alternative address. Sometimes the security is that the first delivery has to go to the cardholder’s billing address, but increasingly that isn’t the case.
You might also e interested to know that there are a couple of companies who are looking at fingerprint and face recognition technology to provide access to safe drop-off points, and this includes developing affordable installations for home delivery.
Best regards
John
I have experiences of trying to deliver ‘Address Only’ and ‘Consignee Only’ parcels in a rural area indelibly etched in my memory.
Drop boxes work fine for businesses (very popular with opticians for example) but I can’t envisage many private customers being bothered with them.
Hi Lint. You are right, the consumer market is a tricky one, the key being obtaining an equivalent to a signature as Proof Of Delivery. I hadn’t realised that in the business market opticians have a use for unattended deliveries though. How does that work exactly? I would have assumed they would have received deliveries in normal openning hours?
Hi Simon.
I was an ICS courier (which included Optical Courier Services) in the Lancaster area for 5 years. Optical stuff, lenses in particular, is small and expensive but not worth ninepence to a thief.
Dropboxes were standard at all D & A branches and, I believe, commonplace at other chains in larger cities to ensure the goods were available by 9.00am
Thanks for the info Lint. I wasn’t aware of that.
Hi, just like to add that DPD’s sister company, Interlink Express, also offer the one hour delivery window. We have a higher first time delivery percentage than DPD and, if we still can’t meet you the first time round, we have twice as many depots so you should have less of a drive to collect it. On the downside, the coffee from their drinks machines is better…..