Nobody here would even consider leaving it outside, despite our crime rate being waay lower than somewhere like the US, where people seem to be 100% fine with that idea.
It was also really uncomfortable because I definitely don't want delivery drivers walking anywhere around my house except for the path from garden gate to front door.
In Germany a friend of mine told me that if they're not home at time of delivery Amazon's shipping partner will intentionally deliver to her neighbors, smaller city though but I guess culture is indeed different.
It's common to such a degree that many of the shipping forms on webshops have a dedicated field to indicate that you don't want this, though I've never felt the need to use this; definitely more convenient to walk over to the neighbours than to a pickup point.
We don't talk to strangers, we don't have the kiss on the cheek thing, we stand in well formed distanced lines, we avoid interaction at "any cost".
I would love it if this delivery thing was the normal procedure in Sweden, it builds trust and relationships in your surroundings. These days unless you live in a teeny village you don't really know your neighbors, other than what car they're driving, so that you can buy a more expensive one with borrowed money next time.
Our national anthem says something like "I wanna live and i wanna die in the Nordics", yeah nah!
I agree that your solution is great.
My wife and I used to live in a street where we were usually the only people at home during the day. All the delivery companies quickly realised we would take in anyone's parcels, so our living room was often like a mini sorting office!
Also, my neighbours are no more likely to be at home than I am.
Edit: forgot to specify that this is in Norway.
It's quite common in Germany to accept parcels for neighbors - but that's also because in Germany, a lot of people live in flats in small-ish housing blocks where you know your neighbors. So, like 6-12 flats per house, not high-rises.
But we have the same problems in Germany as described in the article: especially Amazon's own drivers frequently just don't try to ring but instead just leave the boxes outside or just throw them into the hall.
The German postal system has pretty good public lockers, years before we got Amazon Lockers here. Used them a lot, but lately due to fragmentation of the delivery market and those DHL lockers being reserved for the postal system, I more frequently have to drive to some bar or kiosk to fetch my boxes when the sender chooses a different logistics partner.
For example: https://img1.etsystatic.com/055/0/7471543/il_fullxfull.74786...