[kleiba]

I'm sure similar stories can be told for any country, but I've got to say that when I lived in Germany, I never had any trouble with deliveries. Maybe I just got lucky.

I did feel bad though for the people doing the deliveries, independent of what company they worked for. You can tell it's an awful job and they're working their butts off, sometimes delivering a package way after hours, like say after 9pm or so. I'm afraid it's like that pretty much in any country, though.

[socksy]

I think it’s highly dependent on both what kind of place you live and who the delivery driver is. At my place, I live in the Hinterhaus (which, annoyingly is where my buzzer is) up several flights of stairs with no elevator. Additionally, until recently the delivery driver for my street seemed to have some kind of agreement with someone about 10 houses away on the ground floor that would accept all the parcels for the entire street. They even had the gall to ask for donations for their “service” (all of the parcels I picked up from them reeked of smoke).

At my partner’s place, the delivery people are excellent, and we never miss a parcel. She has an elevator, in a different part of town, and there’s no Hinterhof. It’s very hit or miss.

[sgt]

Same in South Africa. Delivery services (like Courier Guy, Fedex, DHL, Fastway, RAM) are very good. They are fast, phone you if nobody opens up, and I have had zero issues in over a decade.

The country went a bit delivery crazy after COVID, so the competition is healthy.

[Aachen]

Might it also be that deliverers in SA expect it to get nicked if they just leave it at someone's front door? As compared to the deliverer in Sweden mentioned above