[phil21]

> and tramples all over my lawn about 30% of the time

The more I read the comments the more I realize the complaints about delivery services really hit "corner cases" insanely fast. Like I would be livid if a driver didn't just leave a package at my door/driveway. I got it delivered because I don't want to deal with the hassle - if it gets stolen that's simply a cost of doing business. But I have friends who would be just as livid in the opposite direction.

I never would have considered someone cares about a delivery person walking over their lawn to drop a package off.

I think we're going to see more and more of these pain points as we migrate from "dedicated delivery guy you become friends with who knows all the idiosyncrasies of his customers" to "random dude in a Prius who had a couple hours to spare". And I'm completely convinced the latter is coming to the major delivery companies if they want to stay competitive - Fedex Ground is only a hop skip and a jump away from that already.

I imagine what's old will become new again as we re-invent the wheel for a solved problem of 100's of years. The mailbox. We'll simply see a standardized set of shipping lockers be available for both home install and shared use. I imagine within 15 years delivery services will refuse to deliver to anything but such a device. Much like how we saw the evolution of mail service in the US - went from "bob's farm in Springville, MA" to basic numbers, to streets, to zip codes, to requiring standardized mailboxes if you are to get delivery.

[freehunter]

It really is very context dependent, and can change rapidly. When I lived in one apartment, I would always prefer UPS as that driver would leave my packages at the leasing office across the parking lot, where FedEx would try once then make me drive to their location to pick it up, and USPS would try for several days in a row (so if I went to the post office to pick it up at lunch, it was always out on a truck) which meant my packages would come 3 days later than I expected.

Then I moved to another apartment in another town and I preferred USPS because they had keys to leave the package in basically a PO box in the entryway that was meant for packages. UPS left it at the leasing office which meant I had to walk a few blocks to get it and a few blocks back. FedEx would somehow get into the building and leave it sitting in front of my door, which is super not cool with an iPhone-sized package that says "T-Mobile" on the side.

Now that I have a house and I work from home, I prefer USPS because they come at 9am, whereas FedEx comes around noon and UPS isn't here until after 5pm. Even though USPS "tramples" my lawn, they're going to do that anyway to deliver mail, and I'd rather get my package earlier. Plus UPS and FedEx knock on the door which makes my dogs bark when I might be on a call with a client.

But even then, my postman would sometimes walk through my gate into my backyard and leave packages at the back door (I guess to keep them from being stolen?), which stopped pretty quick when he walked through the closed gate and came face to face with my very surprised and scared dogs. Don't ignore a "beware of dog" sign just because you didn't see the dog before you opened the gate. Luckily he just got cornered and not bitten.

Delivering packages with high customer satisfaction is not as easy as it sounds.

[losteverything]

I try hard to please all customers. Your phone number is on amazon labels. Often i text when there are issues. Communication is necessary for excellent customer service.

[dragonwriter]

> I never would have considered someone cares about a delivery person walking over their lawn to drop a package off.

I never would have considered that anyone in the US would fail to recognize the social conventions about the difference between landscaping and walkways and the acceptable uses of each. In places where people have lawns in the first place, they tend to prefer that people not noticeably walk on them (many don't care about the walking so much as any visible sign after the fact.)

[8note]

I'm very confused about the point of having a lawn is. if you're going to have something you cany walk on, why put in grass, one of the plants thats well adapted to be walked on

[dragonwriter]

To the extent that grass is well adapted to beig walked on, that just makes it easier to avoid leaving visible signs of walking on it.

But lawns are largely decorative, which is why people with lawns also tend to have more durable (e.g., concrete) walkways connecting the front entrance of the home to the sidewalk (if present) or curb.

[Retric]

Guy in a Prius actually costs more than a dedicated delivery truck for once a day delivery's. However, if you want same day delivery you are more or less forced to use the Prius model as you are stuck doing small batches of delivery's anyway.

Remember, the last mile cost for you is basically the cost from their last hop to you + the carrying your package to all the other stops. If the delivery guy is going to visit several houses on your street that's basically a few hundred feet on average.

[woolvalley]

If you give everyone same day although, wouldn't the order flow increase to truck sizes?

[extrapickles]

Maybe. That would make it harder to spread the truck to door cost over several orders.

[Slansitartop]

> I think we're going to see more and more of these pain points as we migrate from "dedicated delivery guy you become friends with who knows all the idiosyncrasies of his customers" to "random dude in a Prius who had a couple hours to spare". And I'm completely convinced the latter is coming to the major delivery companies if they want to stay competitive - Fedex Ground is only a hop skip and a jump away from that already.

That will be a sad day.

[leesalminen]

FedEx Home Delivery (Ground for residential) is on a route-franchise system as far as I can tell. The owner of the last route I was on was terrible- had to cancel Blue Apron because of it. Nothing would show up until 10-11 at night. My new route is awesome. Lady always has a smile and always shows up by 4 PM.

[maxerickson]

Living in a small town the delivery guys have been randos for a long time already.

[dllthomas]

An interesting approach might be a service where you could post your preferences, accessible to drivers of any service automatically when they're out to give you your package. Security implications would be nontrivial, though.

[reaperducer]

> I never would have considered someone cares about a delivery person walking over their lawn to drop a package off.

If they're wearing boots, or you have xeriscape, they can damage the irrigation system just an inch or two under the surface.

[Feniks]

I always let packages ship to the local supermarket.

Actually feel bad for delivery guys who have to go to every single adress when its much more efficient to collect stuff at a central point. And how many people are not at home during delivery hours?

[icebraining]

You feel bad for delivery workers, because they have work to do? I'm not sure they feel the same way.

[Feniks]

Actually I'm sure they do. You think its fun running around and climbing stairs for 8 hours a day? Oh and if you're not home they have to come back. For free.