Here (Germany) if you aren’t home (and haven’t given special instructions which could include leaving the package outside) it’s either given to a neighbor, a package-holding place or goes to the post office for you to get.
Otherwise, yes, packages will just be left wherever in front of your door.
I recently had to stake out a Walgreens and wait for the driver to show up to actually get a package before it was returned to the sender.
I'm also fortunate that my nearest grocery store has an Amazon Locker, which I use as much as I can when purchasing from Amazon -- that grocery is also opened until midnight.
An abundance of packages disappear in both systems. Although if your package happens to be left at a local Spati/Bodega/corner store instead of with a neighbor the German system works out pretty well.
Well, they are supposed to tell you where they left the package. In that case I’d probably tell the sender it wasn’t delivered and leave the delivery service to bear the cost if they can’t remember where it ended up.
> And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for?
I find that improbable. But if after a few days there was no contact whatsoever I’d simply drop a note with my phone number in their mailbox reminding them that I have their package ;)
> An abundance of packages disappear in both systems.
Never had problems unless it was Hermes, and even that is somewhat rare (happened twice in 15 years), but then I live in a vastly smaller city (pop 200k) than Berlin.
The weirdest part about seeing so many of my neighbors' packages is how much I learn about their consumption habits. There's the lady who orders two big boxes of cat food whenever there's a discount, the guy who uses his Amazon Prime account to its fullest, the guy who ordered a 50-inch TV without telling his wife (who came to collect the package), the guy who ordered a bunch of different hats (he didn't like the first few after trying them on), the guy who orders tools and parts for his motorcycle...
There is already 6 000 of them.
https://antyweb.pl/tego-jeszcze-nie-bylo-inpost-obniza-ceny-...
They don't however fallback to the local post office when undeliverable, which is the point here.
I've lived in very rural small towns in California, and it required developing a personal relationship with the post office staff/postmaster and UPS driver to have undeliverable packages left at the local post office. The post office employees were technically bending the rules for me. But we had so few local residents it wasn't a significant problem.
They deliver to a PO BOX, but you pay for that service
I've had rural USPS staff become accepting of my non-USPS delivered packages as a personal favor, but never any sort of formalized process.
The formal path is the $78/yr PO BOX, otherwise they're oftentimes downright hostile towards accepting non-USPS deliveries freely for randoms.
Are you just referring to USPS-deliveries? That's different, since postage is being paid.
Can you provide a URL to anything describing this
I've been using this for years. It totally solves the porch-piracy problem.
When I lived in a duplex or single family home it’s left at the front door or garage. There’s no way I’d want my neighbor to have my packages. One neighbor is weird and the other opened my wife’s package when she messed up our address right when we moved in.
Condos can present a weird situation for packages delivered by small 3rd parties delivery companies. Amazon delivery services didn’t have the codes to get in like FedEx/UPS/USPS or keys to the lock boxes.
Remember US and Europe have much different living situations, NYC is dense and similar to Europe but the rest of the US is not. People in NYC have more of a not my problem or not dealing with this BS attitude and rightfully so.
I live in a condo with keyfob access, and Amazon and Lazership are able to deliver right to my door. It probably depends on the condo management. Personally, I like the system I have right now; my neighbors could potentially steal my packages, but that's pretty unlikely, and random people off the street can't easily get in, so it's generally safe to leave packages at people's doors. I have a neighbor across the hall who's had some packages sitting in front of their door for a week now (they've probably been on vacation).
If I owned a single-family home and had a bunch of time on my hands, I'd probably engineer a drop box of some kind that shippers can drop my packages into, but that other people can't get them out of.
If you honestly gave that some thought, it's not an easy problem to solve. Otherwise, I'm sure that the Amazon Home Locker would be a thing.
The main problem is multiple deliveries - how do you make a box that can lock and unlock (automatically or otherwise) for -only- delivery companies and drivers, for multiple deliveries and packages per day - but not allow others to do so?
Remember, the drivers and delivery people have very limited time to deliver packages; they won't read instructions, or even pay nominal attention to them. You won't be able to give them (or the company) some kind of RFID key fob or other item to use to open the locker (because you are only a single address, not a large company with "pull power" and a contracted service agreement - and even then, maybe not). There's also the possibility of freelance or other kinds of "couriers" that likely drive their own vehicles and have no other delivery identification (I've had packages delivered to my door by cab drivers in a marked cab - supposedly shipped by UPS).
I recall one kickstarter where the idea was a "pad" that packages could be put on, but if the pad or a package was removed, an alarm would go off (it also had some kind of camera and email notification capability). IIRC, it got funded, but I have no idea how well the idea worked. Likely, it probably didn't work well at all - simply because delivery people probably didn't use it, or didn't understand to stack packages on top of other deliveries, etc.
I'd personally love a solution for this problem, and so would tons of other people affected by "porch pirates" stealing their packages. My solution is the old fashioned way: Have them delivered to my employer. But this solution isn't available to everyone, unfortunately.
I used the term "drop box" for a reason. You don't need to let drivers unlock the box. It's a drop box: they drop the boxes into it. It's just like a mail slot: the postperson puts the mail in, but can't get it back out. It doesn't require special access or knowledge to use; it would be just like a trash or laundry chute.
The challenge with this is retrofitting some kind of chute so stuff doesn't just drop 8+ ft to a hard floor, and this also requires having an underground floor where the boxes go. Of course, this isn't going to work for something like a 65" TV, but for most packages it's quite doable.
Alternatively most shopping places already allow you to enter delivery instructions where you enter gate codes for unattended gated communities you could just provide them the key code there.
If neither of those would work for reasonably sized packages (ie no TVs) a larger box could have an airlock section like the clothing donation boxes where packages can't be retrieved because they're behind a second door.
Really though I think the actual solution is a combination of more prevalent generic lock boxes, like where Amazon or UPS setup drop locations but made so any company can use them, or partnering with grocery stores or gas stations to hold packages.
[0] Either with you entering it in or going through things like UPS MyChoice and the Fedex and USPS equivalents.
No it's not perfect with obvious drawbacks (more than one package coming), but is probably "good enough."
The deliver guy comes... push the ring... you answer it on your phone and unlocks the box from it.
I trust some of my neighbors to bring me my mail and/or packages if there was an issue delivering them but there are a few that I absolutely do _not_ trust, either because they would just keep the package for themselves or throw it out, or because I don't see them often and they might just plain forget about it for a few days or weeks.
I get my stuff delivered to work most of the time because of this.