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What, what? I honestly don't understand why you wouldn't want home delivery?? Things arrive at your home, you don't need to go anywhere, I work from home so I'm here almost all the time anyway, Amazon gives you accurate timing for delivery time so no, I won't be accidentally in the shower, and porch pirates don't really exist in the UK - if I'm not at home(or don't answer the door) then the parcel goes back to the depot and I get it delivered the following day.

But yes, like others have mentioned - you can just pick an automated locker as delivery address if that's what you prefer.

Honestly, I'm so incredibly baffled by your comment it's crazy.

Then you didn't read my comment as a said I would even pay for the feature not to have home delivery, if I had the option.

The thread gives more context. I am as baffled that home delivery is the default by many services.

Home delivery for what, would be my question. I absolutely hate home delivery for food, and that went for pizza delivery in the "bad old days" just as much as Doordash in modern times. I'm only ever getting food from local restaurants anyway, I'd rather get it myself.

But package delivery, hell yeah. It's opened up an unimaginable world of products that simply don't exist at a corner store.

I live about a 5 minute walk from my local post office, but that's still an order of magnitude less convenient than having stuff delivered to my house. Especially because the post office is not necessarily on my way home from wherever I happen to be.

I've never once worried about missing a package. you seem to be constructing an idealized world of urban life, while simultaneously creating a fantastically unsafe world of suburban life. I've never in my life had a package stolen from my porch. I don't have security cameras up all over the place, I just choose not to worry, and it all works fine.

"... that simply don't exist at a corner store."

Which is why you have it delivered to your corner store...

"and it all works fine."

Why risk it if i it doesn't add anything. An insane amount of energy and effort for something that doesn't bring the slightest value. Don't focus too much about porch pirates, I haven't heard of them here at all so it is not part of my main argument. I just think it is wild that it exist at all (and evidently by youtube it can be a problem).

A magnitude less convenient is still barely just inconvenient.

Which model is better for minimising environmental impacts of all sorts:

1. 50 people all drive from their homes to various stores/pickup points to buy shit, or

2. 1 vehicle drives to 50 homes, dropping off the shit they ordered online.

First option isn't relevant to the discussion.

Fair enough, but a similar, albeit lesser impact, scenario holds if there's a localish (but not close enough to walk) dropoff point.

(anecdata: My closest dropoff point is a 40 minute drive each way.)

It does not, by a longshot. Because most people wander from their home at some point, regularly even. Pick a spot near a location that is close to where you will be going regardless (which for most people most of the time will be very close to their home anyway, since it is so convenient no matter where you are going).

That your closest dropoff is so far away is likely a result of it not being prioritized, due to perhaps home-delivery. Or that you live so far off the grid. Then of course you like home-delivery, but it is being heavily subsidized.

Neither is an argument for the default home-delivery I'm talking about.

> My closest dropoff point is a 40 minute drive each way.

Obviously it's different for you but I'd argue this is not the case for the majority of people. Also I'd say maybe we don't have to rush there as soon as the package arrives. Why not pick it up next time we're there anyway? Let's go one step further, why buy so much shit in the first place. It all comes down to the fact that we've taken on a lifestyle that's extremely convenient and luxurious but doesn't seem to be very sustainable.

In Canada we have something like this.. Flex Delivery. Let's you just enter the address of the nearest postal outlet to you. Boxes are left at that depot, you get a notification when it's ready for pickup.

Edit: since our gov't postal service is teamed up with a pharmacy/general store (Shoppers Drugmart), there's a tonne of convenient locations. Closest one to me is 4 blocks, on my drive home from work.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/recei...

> I'd pay good money NOT to have it delivered to my home

Amazon lets you deliver stuff to automated lockers in various high traffic places like what you mention.

Also some delivery services will let you specify a shop or something where you can have your package delivered instead of your home.

> Such unimaginable waste driving around to every single home needing delivery

Unless the deliveries are to high population density locations with a high density of pickup locations, home delivery the the most efficient way to shop in terms of resource usage. Anything that stops people getting in their car is a win.

"Unless the deliveries are to high population density locations with a high density of pickup locations, home delivery the the most efficient way to shop in terms of resource usage. Anything that stops people getting in their car is a win. "

The point was that you already pass such places on your way to work or other errands, car or not that is way more efficient both for climate and human resources than having dedicated drivers doing stops at every single home on their route.

Don't confuse this with going to the mall.

I would still argue that home delivery is more environmentally friendly...

The Amazon and UPS drivers delivering to my suburban neighborhood seem to drop at least two packages per street, so the cost in gas per delivery is half a street (wild approximation). If I am driving home and stop off at a grocery store as I pass I still have to get to and navigate in and out of their parking lot. Likely more than half a streets worth of gas in the best possible case.

Only walking to the store is going to be more environmentally friendly.

We can talk about Amazon's packaging related carbon costs but that is not this thread.

Even if that argument would hold (which seriously doubt)...

But, the completely unnecessary hundreds of thousands of trucks that saves people literally 5 minutes???

And the unimaginable number of man-years wasted on this?

Incomprehensible.

> Such unimaginable waste driving around to every single home needing delivery.

I think this is a very reasonable thing to say. It's such a decadent thing to get all your stuff delivered to your door especially given how much stuff many of us get these days. It's so inefficient compared to shipping to a central location (where possible) like a post office or a grocery store and picking it up next time you're there anywhere.

There's already the option to use delivery lockers if it's that inconvenient for you. In my area they just drop the package on my porch for 99.9% of deliveries so there's not even really a concern of missing or being interrupted by a delivery.

Also I'm still working from home over 75% of the time during the work week (1 week per month requested time in office) so I'm not actually driving by all these possible pickups constantly and it would be a net additional trip, and a short one at that which is the worst case for emissions and additional engine wear because it will barely get warmed up on the 1 mi drive to my nearest locker location, to use them.

Wait, your delivery guys don't just drop your parcel and run these days? Since COVID even when I'm in the house are happy to answer the door it's rare I actually see who dropped the parcel.

I know, right? I can see them from my office window, sometimes I run down to get the package to say hi but they're already half in their car.

> I'd pay good money NOT to have it delivered to my home

Wait, are you being forced to get home delivery? Or are you already paying good money to buy things at the markup of your local stores?

From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not. Amazon is probably the worst in this regard but especially when ordering abroad they might use something like fedex or UPS (which both do have local services where you can pick packages up, but depending on what the sender opted to when they sent it might not be possible. "And because everyone likes home-delivery why not default at that").

Or like in the UPS case, oh, no, our store can only handle packages going by air. Boat packages are a completely different thing. There is no way we can help you because they have a different tracking label. The kinds of problems humans create for themselves...

> From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not

What on earth are you talking about? Every purchase for a physical item I’ve made since 2001 included a billing address and a shipping address. How on earth are you being tricked? Do you just not look at shipping address and get mad later? That is a very particular problem.

I think what they are trying to say is that a lot of times you don't know (and don't have a choice) if you are going to have to go to a post office to pick up a package or if it will be delivered to the door. Sometimes it's up to the sender, sometimes it depends on the size and sometimes it up to the whim of the postal operator. I'd say only about 25% of my Amazon purchases here in Spain have the explicit option to go pick it up at a local shop or Amazon locker. The other 75% of the time I can have it only sent to my home address. Of those times, about 50% of the time they deliver to the door and the other 50% to some random shop nearby for me to pick up without any way of knowing which will be which. Obviously results will vary from country to country.

Edit: Nevermind.

FYI in the US, there is categorically never any confusion as to where a package is being shipped. Ever.

The question isn't where, but how.

> From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not.

What does this sentence mean then?

Home delivery = delivery to door. Often requiring you to be there to sign the pickup or let someone in the apartment complex.

Not home delivery: Usually delivered to nearby gas station (or kiosk, grocery store, whatever) and/or post-box you can open with code. Where this is the norm it is usually a few minutes walking distance. But you can often pick where you want it, if you want it close to your work instead or wherever.

You have not answered my question at all. I know what home delivery is. I use it all the time!

How is it possible that you do not know whether a package will come to your house or (by your example) a nearby gas station kiosk?

Do you share an address with the nearby gas station kiosk?

How does not-home-delivery work then? If I send a package to your address, how will you get it? Automatically by home delivery?

When you send a package the only information provided is often the shipping address. If the service uses home-delivery that means that someone comes knocking on my door. If they don't provide home-delivery it will delivered to the nearest pickup-point and I'll get a note in my mailbox saying that there is a package to pick up (in reality I already know this because of tracking information via the web, app and/or sms+email if that was provided when the package was sent).

If the web site I'm ordering from provides it I can pick different options and depending on option I can pick which pickup point I prefer.

But what if they don't? What if I'm ordering something from a different country? What if the shipping provider they offer in that country don't operate in my country?

Even more common, it isn't even listed what provider they use for sending. They might probably use different providers depending on package size. If it is small it is going in my mailbox, if it is really big it can be too big even for my local gas station. So after ordering I get a tracking number and then I know which provider is gonna deliver it. And then I know if I have to WFH just to receive that package.

Last week I got a package that I had ordered from a large companies EU site. No idea even what country the package was going to be sent from. And I had no idea how it was gonna be delivered - free shipping though. A week after ordering I got an text message saying that amazon would send the package (f*ck, bad sign) and that it would arrive between 19 and 22 the very same day (someone even paid extra for evening delivery huh?). Well, I wasn't home that day so... Lucky for me they were overbooked and couldn't get to my place and by 23 they sent a message saying that they postponed it to the next day (at which point I happened to be home).

Or, what if they could just have dropped it off at the local pickup-point and I'd have it as soon as I got home? Not an option.

I am so confused here. Again, what on earth are you talking about?

You live in the US, right? If USPS, UPS, or Fedex is given a delivery address, that’s where they deliver the package. It’s that simple. There is no complicating factor whatsoever. They do not wander off to the local gas station and drop your package off there. That is a fantasy.

Different websites do not dictate the behavior of the shipping carrier, that’s also a fantasy. Once the seller hands the package to the shipping company, it is literally out of their hands.

In your story, a package on the way to your residence got delayed. This happens sometimes and has zero effect on the shipping address. There was no point in which you had to worry that maybe it would show up at a gas station.

Again, how is it possible that you do not know _WHERE_ your package is being sent to?

And if you live in an apartment and can't work from home? You let your $2000 package sit by the door? What if the package you have been waiting for three months happens to arrive during your one week vacation abroad? The package will wait for you by your door? Does sound simple yes...

No, I do not live in the US.

> "There was no point in which you had to worry that maybe it would show up at a gas station."

Why on earth would I be worried about that? That is what I wanted! So much easier and quicker. What I worry about is what would happen if I wasn't home during home-delivery.

I actually have a fedex package on its way from the US to me right now. Thankfully fedex are nowadays sane enough to allow me to redirect it to a gas station pickup point rather than trying to deliver it to me at home.

You still have not clarified this sentence:

> From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not

What do you mean by that? I am not discussing what to do with expensive packages or the merits of dropoff locations. I literally just asked what you mean when you say you do not know if a package that’s shipped to your home will be delivered to your home.

Also, what did you mean by this if you don’t live in the US?

> The whole concept that we (well, the US at least) have porch pirates is just wild. Why?

> "What do you mean by that?"

First of all it was answered by gorbypark, but I also answered it many times. You don't seem to keen on answering questions though.

To make it real clear: You go to a website, put something in your cart. Enter your home address as shipping address. Add payment and complete the order.

Now the package might end up at a gas station, or it might be home-delivery. And there is no way to know that before you get your tracking information, at which point you can't even cancel the order without receiving it first.

> Also, what did you mean by this if you don’t live in the US?

Because youtube is full of videos of porch pirates in the US, and it is not anything I've really heard of where I live. But yes, that sentence was badly written. Did not mean we as in my country.

This is by far the dumbest exchange I’ve had on this website.

Have you considered advocating for a more functional mail system where you live rather than trying to convince people in other countries that the very concept of mail delivery is universally flawed?

Well, I consider the system in the US to be dystopian and much worse than what we have here.

The only problem we have is with home delivery and that is mostly been with US providers anyway. And it is explained partly because the US providers are mostly used by businesses, where "home" delivery actually make sense.

I like my home, I don't like other people or crowds.

I pay extra for home delivery so I can avoid people and crowds.

You wouldn't ever need to be in a crowd.

Avoid people, fine, but I don't think that would be the norm. A lot of places have boxes where you just enter a code. Wouldn't ever need to be closer than 20 meters to a living soul.

>You wouldn't ever need to be in a crowd.

Have you been inside of a grocery store in the week before Thanksgiving or Christmas?

The local one? It will be fine. The big one? No thanks but they are a little bit off anyway so postal services typically don't go there (and if so I'd just pick a different spot).

Oh good. Thank god that the stranger on the internet you’re responding to has access to the same exact options that you do.

Makes for better discussions not to assume a special case and also not the two busiest weeks of the year, don't you think?

You categorically stated that there is never any cause to be in a crowd. Makes for a better discussion when you don’t impose your lofty opinion as an absolute, don’t you think?

There is one in a corner shop nearby, but it's full 99% of the time. And if it's full the packages get rerouted to the big post office a few kms away - which is always packed full of people.

I'll still pay the few euros extra for a home delivery =)

If home delivery wasn't the default maybe there would be incentives to improve that.

By all means, pay for it. That is great, but it should cost money (rather than subsidized) because it is so wasteful, and it shouldn't be the default.

The world misses you. The world is better off knowing you and your opinions. Friction and conflict are not a bad thing.

yeah seems like ubiquitous local delivery spots will be the future. It s a matter of efficiency