[popopje]

Package delivery is never a good experience in the UK

i have my packages delivered to a friendly shop nearby - to my house, it's a nightmare.

The collect+ system also works reasonably well, i take that option if offered. (where it's delivered to a local cornershop or similar and you walk to pick it up)

I really feel there should be a gap in the market for "last mile" delivery to be solved properly, but i suspect there's not enough money to slow things down, and residential delivery is inherently difficult anywhere that doesn't have regimented street layouts.

Try addresses for all lo - if no reply, deliver to pre-arranged local shop. Text/email alert allowing redelivery to address or changed address within an hour or two, for a premium fee (bicycle couriers and other instant courier delivery)

that would solve all of my issues anyway..

[hellweaver666]

I'm a British expat living in Amsterdam. My company uses this service called MyPup - they give me a username and a code, I have all my stuff shipped to them and when it arrives they send me an SMS message letting me know it's arrived. Around an hour later I get another message letting me know it's been delivered to my office and the code to get into a temporary locker to retrieve my package.

They have someone at their office 24/7 to receive packages and another guy that does the "last mile". Once I urgently needed a package that arrived out of office hours on Friday - I sent them an email and they bought it to my house on Saturday. It's awesomely convenient!

[TheOtherHobbes]

I've had terrible experiences with some couriers, but good experiences with DPD.

They provide a one-hour delivery window, a map with local van tracking, and the driver usually arrives in the earlier half of the time slot.

You can choose an alternative date or delivery to a neighbour right until the van rolls up.

Short of Star Trek teleportation or Magic Drone Technology[tm], it's probably as a good a service as it can be.

[popopje]

have you switched delivery to neighbour on the day? i have, to a direct neighbour, and the new date given was 24hrs later. I eventually cancelled delivery of that package because it still wasn't with me 4 days later. Generally i've had poor experiences with DPD, just like any other.

[mirsadm]

Having moved from Australia to the UK, I can tell you the delivery services I've used so far (Yodel, DPD etc) are far superior than any service in Australia. They even deliver on Saturdays and Sundays. That's amazing.

[jon-wood]

You're the first person I've ever heard compare Yodel favourably to anything, deliveries must be truly awful in Australia!

[voltagex_]

I order way, way too much stuff in Australia, here's a summary:

AusPost: Our national carrier, realised a few years ago that no one's sending letters any more and "pivoted" to parcel delivery. Parcel Lockers [0] are a "new" innovation here but heaven help you if you try to get a courier parcel into one. Royal Mail = Good, DHL = Bad in this case and you might not even know until the seller receives the parcel back.

Fedex: Sorry, we missed you. (And the nearest depot is 30+ minutes away somewhere where buses don't go and you can only collect after 4 on weekdays)

DHL: Sorry, we missed you.

UPS: Sorry, we missed you (or handed your parcel off to StarTrack, in which case it'll go to a parcel locker, but you'll never know if this is actually going to happen)

USPS, Royal Mail etc: Handed off to AusPost, can go to a parcel locker.

StarTrack: More expensive, more blue version of AusPost - semi private (?), the only courier that AusPost will let into the lockers

Toll: Sorry we missed you, there's a redelivery fee in a lot of cases. Tried to start up a Parcel Locker competitor and then didn't expand to many locations [1]. The website returned 500 errors for the first 6 months of its existence.

Amazon: We're not going to actually tell you who is carrying your parcel because we outsourced it to iParcel who sometimes use UPS and sometimes use AusPost. Send an Amazon (US/UK/DE) parcel to an AusPost locker at your own peril

eBay: Most Aussie sellers use AusPost, so that works, but for some reason overseas orders go through some kind of Pitney Bowes reseller - see UPS, DHL, FedEx, Amazon above.

[0]: http://lockers.auspost.com.au [1]: http://parcelpoint.com.au

[celticninja]

im in the UK and any delivery tends to try my house first, then a neighbour and failing that the shop opposite me.

The only time I have any real issue is when it requires signing for e.g. speciali delivery, in which case I have to go collect it.

Saying that, I did have a delivery (ebay purchase delivered by courier) that was stolen. they must have watched the driver try to deliver and when there was no answer he went to the shop and dropped it off there. a few minutes later someone went in and asked for the parcel and the shop gave it out. not their fault and it should have been signed for so I was able to claim a refund.

[mattmanser]

Every time I use collect+ the shop always seems to complain about it (it's too big/I'm too busy/etc.). These have all been various different shops.

[popopje]

i have had issues with that on one occasion too, now i remember.. (package was refused by the shop, went back to the depot for another day, changing the address to my home added another day etc etc.)

[jameshart]

Ah, the famous British customer service experience.