Anyone who has ever purchased on the internet – the vast majority of readers of these few lines – knows: nothing is less certain than seeing your parcel delivery arrive on time at your home. Not to mention the delivery time, the problem comes, most of the time, from the fact that you are not present, that your delivery person cannot find you. Then begins the infernal race for the parcel, the horrors of which we know only too well: queue at the post office, closed relay point, parcel stuck in the sorting center, return to the sender, as well as the myriad of hassles that ensue. ensues — especially when you're in a hurry!
However, a few good practices will allow you to avoid the main pitfalls of failed delivery. Our advice to make your life easier with your packages below:
1. Give the delivery person a way to contact you
This is THE main advice: delivery people increasingly tend to call the recipient a few minutes before arriving at their address. Often, a brief telephone exchange will allow you to find a solution “on the go”: (i) ask them to leave the package in front of your home, because you are only a few minutes away; (ii) tell them the address of a neighbor or a caretaker who you know to be present on site; (iii) offer to drop off your package at a local business that agrees to take it; (iv) give him a tip to hide the package in your residence while waiting for your return; (v) ask him if he won't come back to your neighborhood a little later; (vi) generate an opening code for your parcel locker directly, if your residence is equipped with one.
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2. Give clear and easy-to-follow delivery instructions
More and more e-commerce sites offer specific sections in address fields to facilitate delivery: “Delivery to a safe location”, “Instructions for your delivery person”, “Specific delivery instructions”, etc. These fields allow you to precisely describe information that the delivery person will be able to read and use to drop off your package. Use them wisely!
3. Equip yourself with a parcel reception system
The absolute weapon when it comes to receiving packages in your absence remains having an automatic security system directly at home. Still underdeveloped on the European market (but popular in Asia for example), domestic parcel boxes replace a concierge in an economical, systematic and 24/7 manner. Boks is the French leader in this type of system, and offers inexpensive solutions, without work and for all types of housing: individual as well as collective, old as well as new. Please feel free to view our product range for further information.
4. Ask for help from the neighborhood
Help between neighbors can be useful: if your relationship is good, a neighbor can help you collect your packages, provided that you will return the favor when it is their turn to be away from home. Some co-ownerships enjoying good co-existence even use messaging loops to talk about parcel topics (among other things) and help each other by maximizing the number of participants — and therefore the chances that one of them will be present on site when the delivery person passes.
5. Have it delivered to where you know you can receive your package
If you have no way to be at home, no neighbor can help you, and you don't have a parcel box, or a secret “hiding place” for your delivery person, there's no point asking be delivered to your home. Prefer delivery to the office (if the latter authorizes it!) or fall back, as a last resort, to a relay point: the experience is less pleasant, it takes more time, but you will collect your package — if you arrive before closing!
So. We hope that these tips, most of which come from common sense, will be useful to you – if not revolutionary – and wish you good reception of (all) your packages!
