I have a new printer being delivered from Amazon via “FedEx Home Delivery.” I didn’t pay much attention to the shipper, but after I missed the first delivery (attempted at 4:55 PM on a Thursday) I looked it up.
“When shipping your package to a customer’s home, you want it at their door at the time that works best for them. With day-definite, evening and appointment delivery times you can tailor delivery to when it is convenient for your recipient. FedEx Home Delivery serves 100 percent of residential addresses even on Saturdays (at no additional charge) and evenings, and is supported by a money-back guarantee.*” (from FedEx’s Home Delivery website)
Well, that sounds great. 4:55 PM isn’t a terrible choice of delivery time (school around here lets out at 3 PM), but of course it’ll miss every single-parent home, or dual-working-outside-the-house-adults home.
So let’s customize the delivery! Maybe I can get an appointment, or an evening delivery. FedEx website->tracking->customize delivery.
“Schedule your Delivery ($)”? Grayed out. (The $ means you have to pay extra for this)
“Deliver to another address ($)” Grayed out.
Well, maybe I’ll just use the Devil’s Choice and pre-sign for the delivery, never mind that there were reports of packages stolen from doorsteps this week on our street. Oh, it’s grayed out, too.
So I wait for Friday and see if they’ll deliver it when I’m home. I actually planned to work from home anyway, as I had a small mountain of forms to fill in and doing it from home somewhat counteracts the dreariness of paperwork.
Nope. I left at 4:30 to pick up the kids from school, and returned at 5:05 to find the “we missed you” tag on the door. The delivery ninja attacked at 4:45 PM.
It just doesn’t sound very convenient or customized for a… you know… home delivery.
So now my choices are to wait all day at home on Saturday (can’t do it), or to redirect it to a FedEx office. I ended up doing the latter. Not terrible, but inconvenient: I hoped to have the printer this weekend and use it to print our holiday cards, and it weights 25 kg. Now I’m going to have to schlep it around on Monday.
A First World Problem, sure, but a large part of the appeal of getting stuff from Amazon and having it delivered is convenience.
Part 2: Victory, on Saturday no less.