I am part of the group that would be fine with this. We already let several vendors in our house for delivery of goods and services. We also do not lock our house. Good to be in small town USA. If I was in a city it would be a tough sell.
I am a fellow small-city dweller (9,000) and that relative safety obviates the need for inside delivery. I've had guitars and a TV on my porch for hours without them being taken.
I'm not letting anyone into my house, but a hybrid of this concept with their delivery lockers would be fine with me: a secure locker on my property that only Amazon and I can open.
I'm not letting anyone into my house, but a hybrid of this concept with their delivery lockers would be fine with me: a secure locker on my property that only Amazon and I can open.
Doesn't matter how secure something is said to be, people are innovative and they'll figure out how to break into it in short order.
Would be curious to see results for the same survey in two years. This is how it will go with some people...
1. I would never allow the delivery person to enter my home. 2. Oh crap, the new TV I need for the Super Bowl is coming on Friday and it's supposed to rain. Plus I don't want that big box sitting on my porch until we get home from work. 3. I already have one of those smart lock thingies, maybe I'll try that Amazon Key service. Just this one time. 4. That went well, I'll have them put the groceries in the house too. Don't want them to sit outside in the heat all day. 5. Have you tried Amazon Key? It's really convenient.
Yes, this is exactly how it goes. But you forgot the next steps:
6. Amazon: Oh, you want it left outside? Sure, that'll be an extra $5.00 7. Amazon: Sorry, due to theft mitigation costs, we require the ability to go inside your house.
Think this is impossible? It wasn't that long ago that people were (rightfully) aghast that anyone would let commercial companies read through their emails and create behavioral profiles based on the content. And yet most people just shrug their shoulders if you mention it now.
6. Amazon: Oh, you want it left outside? Sure, that'll be an extra $5.00 7. Amazon: Sorry, due to theft mitigation costs, we require the ability to go inside your house.
Some of my bills are $10 more per month because I don’t do auto-pay. As though it costs $10 for processing a paper envelope. Fuck these companies.
Only if I had a floorplan such that I could grant access to a "mud room", but the rest of my house remained behind a 2nd, locked door.
In cities like Philadelphia, many of the rowhomes have vestibules, which would be perfect for something like this.
There are also innumerable converted apartment buldings/small condo buildings where USPS has the official key to get in the front door to deliver mail, but parcel delivery services have no access.
To a point, this already exists, at least where I live. Some local shops act as drop off/pick up points for Amazon as do local post offices and you have the Amazon Lockers for out of office hours pick up.
But what about individuals and freelancers? I'm well aware of commercial package drop-off/pick-up and the Amazon lockers but I haven't seen individual Uber/AirBnb style registered package handling services, at least not in rural and semi-rural areas.
6. Amazon: Oh, you want it left outside? Sure, that'll be an extra $5.00 7. Amazon: Sorry, due to theft mitigation costs, we require the ability to go inside your house.
Some of my bills are $10 more per month because I don’t do auto-pay. As though it costs $10 for processing a paper envelope. Fuck these companies.
They don't want to hire people to pack things into envelopes and send them out, and pay for printing, envelopes, return envelopes, and postage. Moreso they don't want to hire people to receive envelopes, deposit cheques, call you when they bounce, correct for spelling or errors, and all that. Or pay for their mistakes. Or for extra accounting hours to reconcile deposits.
The fewer the number of manual payments, the more the overhead per customer for maintaining those services.
Some of the mobile phone companies in my area operate entirely without you ever seeing someone, require electronic payments, and don't have a call centre for issues.
If everyone did auto-pay the money would just roll in.
While I agree $10 seems a bit steep, if you were the "last" customer that didn't do auto-pay, the $10 is starting to look really cheap!
I am part of the group that would be fine with this. We already let several vendors in our house for delivery of goods and services. We also do not lock our house. Good to be in small town USA. If I was in a city it would be a tough sell.
A good friend used to live outside a small town close to where I grew up. A nice little house on a lake where no one locked their doors. Some even left the vehicles open with the keys in them. Then one night, my friend wakes up to some noise and it was a burglar in his room! Apparently, the rest of the family was out of town and the burglar thought the house was empty. Moral of the story... bad stuff happens in small towns too.
Only if I had a floorplan such that I could grant access to a "mud room", but the rest of my house remained behind a 2nd, locked door.
I like that. Maybe Amazon should optionally install 'package delivery lock boxes' when you join Prime. Or, maybe they could come with a little robot that would guard the package and/or put a small tarp over it if it rains. Then when you get home and identify with the robot, it thanks you for being a customer and flies/drives home.
Just like 5 years ago a survey would have shown the majority of people saying "no way" to getting into a car with a stranger instead of using a taxi, and 'get the F out' to renting out someone's apartment or letting strangers into yours. This will all change once the 32% start gushing about how they couldn't live without it now
Good point... we could probably list hundreds of things that people would have found unacceptable 5-10 years ago. Unless you're a 'progressive' I suppose.
Personally, I might be okay with it if they were actual employees of a company, but the delivery people are just random men or women who happen to need a low-paying, dead-end means of making income.
I don't know... up here they seem nice enough and quite efficient. Well, when I actually see one, that is. They (from several delivery services maybe even?) are often plain-clothed people driving their own vehicles. They don't even ring the door-bell so unless you happen to notice them, the packages just appear. My guess is it's kind of like the Uber of delivery services? They just contract it out?
tundraboy said: ... gladly surrender their intimate personal information to corporations who have far, far less legal and moral accountability ...
It's pretty hard to get less legal and moral authority than the US government, isn't it? Yes, we technically have power, but that doesn't seem to make any difference if we don't actually enforce it. I don't trust Google or Amazon much, but I'll take them ANY DAY over the the gov't.
king editor the grate said: I am a fellow small-city dweller (9,000) and that relative safety obviates the need for inside delivery. I've had guitars and a TV on my porch for hours without them being taken.
Yea, I also live in a fairly small city (not too long ago dubbed the crime capital of Canada) just outside the edge of a rather sketchy neighborhood. I've had $2000+ computers left outside the door. I often wonder how that works. I suppose they just save so much time by dump and run, that it outweighs any claims? And, would they actually honor a claim if it disappeared?
There was also a time when people were unwilling to make online purchases yet it's commonplace now. I wonder if Amazon based their decisions on what polls said back then where they'd be now...
In the early days of online shopping, it wasn't a good idea. Many things happened to counter that, but I don't see parallels here.
tokyojimu said: I trust the delivery drivers more than the local homeless guys who walk around my neighborhood stealing everyone's packages off their doorsteps.
Because, I often see homeless guys with toaster ovens, blue-rays, laptops, and 55" TVs. Oh, I suppose maybe they aren't homeless anymore afterwards? Score!
I don't think i'll ever let delivery people inside my home (i already can as i do have smart locks). What i do currently is answer the doorbell then open the garage door for them. Very little of value in there, and i watch them as they go in and out. The only issue is when something needs to be signed for.. though i've found about 90% of delivery drivers will just sign it on my behalf.
To a point, this already exists, at least where I live. Some local shops act as drop off/pick up points for Amazon as do local post offices and you have the Amazon Lockers for out of office hours pick up.
But what about individuals and freelancers? I'm well aware of commercial package drop-off/pick-up and the Amazon lockers but I haven't seen individual Uber/AirBnb style registered package handling services, at least not in rural and semi-rural areas.
As you mentioned in your previous post, I think the biggest impediment is being able to ensure that those people can have stable enough timetables to be able to honour the pick up times promised to the purchaser.
Local commerce offers that feature. I have an Amazon Locker very near home in one direction and a small bookshop in 5 minutes away in the other direction which is also a pick up point for other delivery services.
I'm not sure if Amazon pays her on a per pickup basis or a flat fee, though.
If it's a flat fee, Amazon would want to limit the options in any particular area.
Have they looked at the physical appearance of most of their drivers? A bit different than the cute, long haired woman showing her bare ankles in the photo...umm, no thanks!
1. Their drivers? I wasn't aware Amazon had a delivery service in the first place.
2. The cute, long haired woman showing her ankles in the marketing photo could still be a murderous, thieving, arsonist. You weren't taught not to judge by appearances?
1. You seriously have never seen the white vans with the lower case “a” zipping around your neighborhood at excessively high speeds? You really need to get out more.
2. This isn’t a Charlie’s Angels movie! Stop living in your Netflix universe and go outside.
1. Nope. Probably they don't have them in my area. I live in a pretty conservative and slow-moving region that only talks itself up, rather than actually advancing things.
2. Huh, blast from the past. I can't think of the last time I saw a Charlie's Angels movie. Are they still making those? I have been watching Dark Angel, that show from 2000...
Have they looked at the physical appearance of most of their drivers? A bit different than the cute, long haired woman showing her bare ankles in the photo...umm, no thanks!
1. Their drivers? I wasn't aware Amazon had a delivery service in the first place.
2. The cute, long haired woman showing her ankles in the marketing photo could still be a murderous, thieving, arsonist. You weren't taught not to judge by appearances?
The data is pretty clear - women are less likely to be serial killers than men. Don’t pretend otherwise.
Sure. It's still possible though. I don't like gambling with statistics.
Why is the driver squatting? Seems she's trying to be a bit surreptitious. Mayhap the delivery is prelude to squatting in the house.
Proper way to lift and put down the possibly heavy box.
Heavy boxes aren't grasped on the corner with two fingers.
Well it IS a fiction, no matter how we analyze the photo. At least it wasn't a generic stock photo of any random delivery person carrying something into a house.
6. Amazon: Oh, you want it left outside? Sure, that'll be an extra $5.00 7. Amazon: Sorry, due to theft mitigation costs, we require the ability to go inside your house.
Some of my bills are $10 more per month because I don’t do auto-pay. As though it costs $10 for processing a paper envelope. Fuck these companies.
They don't want to hire people to pack things into envelopes and send them out, and pay for printing, envelopes, return envelopes, and postage. Moreso they don't want to hire people to receive envelopes, deposit cheques, call you when they bounce, correct for spelling or errors, and all that. Or pay for their mistakes. Or for extra accounting hours to reconcile deposits.
The fewer the number of manual payments, the more the overhead per customer for maintaining those services.
Some of the mobile phone companies in my area operate entirely without you ever seeing someone, require electronic payments, and don't have a call centre for issues.
If everyone did auto-pay the money would just roll in.
While I agree $10 seems a bit steep, if you were the "last" customer that didn't do auto-pay, the $10 is starting to look really cheap!
This is all true. But it has nothing to do with benefitting the customer. They don't reduce the costs of the service when they save money on all this. They increase their profits.
When you get home you will find your package waiting just inside your front door. Your dog, however, is another story. But as long as they have supermodels deliver packages, we can overlook those minor issues.
I'm not letting anyone into my house, but a hybrid of this concept with their delivery lockers would be fine with me: a secure locker on my property that only Amazon and I can open.
Doesn't matter how secure something is said to be, people are innovative and they'll figure out how to break into it in short order.
like your house...?
i don't think the concern is about finding an ultra-secure location, rather a "third-party" location that isn't your living room.
It is interesting that so many people have absolutely no problem with Google, Facebook... to trample on their privacy like a big white elephant but are more cautious when we are talking about physical property.
Do the not realize what these companies are doing, ... or is it just me overrating my own privacy?
Comments
6. Amazon: Oh, you want it left outside? Sure, that'll be an extra $5.00
7. Amazon: Sorry, due to theft mitigation costs, we require the ability to go inside your house.
Think this is impossible? It wasn't that long ago that people were (rightfully) aghast that anyone would let commercial companies read through their emails and create behavioral profiles based on the content. And yet most people just shrug their shoulders if you mention it now.
In cities like Philadelphia, many of the rowhomes have vestibules, which would be perfect for something like this.
There are also innumerable converted apartment buldings/small condo buildings where USPS has the official key to get in the front door to deliver mail, but parcel delivery services have no access.
The fewer the number of manual payments, the more the overhead per customer for maintaining those services.
Some of the mobile phone companies in my area operate entirely without you ever seeing someone, require electronic payments, and don't have a call centre for issues.
If everyone did auto-pay the money would just roll in.
While I agree $10 seems a bit steep, if you were the "last" customer that didn't do auto-pay, the $10 is starting to look really cheap!
I like that. Maybe Amazon should optionally install 'package delivery lock boxes' when you join Prime.
Or, maybe they could come with a little robot that would guard the package and/or put a small tarp over it if it rains. Then when you get home and identify with the robot, it thanks you for being a customer and flies/drives home.
Good point... we could probably list hundreds of things that people would have found unacceptable 5-10 years ago. Unless you're a 'progressive' I suppose.
I don't know... up here they seem nice enough and quite efficient. Well, when I actually see one, that is. They (from several delivery services maybe even?) are often plain-clothed people driving their own vehicles. They don't even ring the door-bell so unless you happen to notice them, the packages just appear. My guess is it's kind of like the Uber of delivery services? They just contract it out?
It's pretty hard to get less legal and moral authority than the US government, isn't it? Yes, we technically have power, but that doesn't seem to make any difference if we don't actually enforce it. I don't trust Google or Amazon much, but I'll take them ANY DAY over the the gov't.
Yea, I also live in a fairly small city (not too long ago dubbed the crime capital of Canada) just outside the edge of a rather sketchy neighborhood. I've had $2000+ computers left outside the door. I often wonder how that works. I suppose they just save so much time by dump and run, that it outweighs any claims? And, would they actually honor a claim if it disappeared?
In the early days of online shopping, it wasn't a good idea. Many things happened to counter that, but I don't see parallels here.
Because, I often see homeless guys with toaster ovens, blue-rays, laptops, and 55" TVs.
Local commerce offers that feature. I have an Amazon Locker very near home in one direction and a small bookshop in 5 minutes away in the other direction which is also a pick up point for other delivery services.
I'm not sure if Amazon pays her on a per pickup basis or a flat fee, though.
If it's a flat fee, Amazon would want to limit the options in any particular area.
But years-worth of knowing is a prerequisite to entering my space without me there to watch carefully.
When John is off for the day, and another delivery-person takes his place, all bets are off.
Shady people are opportunists, and they are everywhere.
2. Huh, blast from the past. I can't think of the last time I saw a Charlie's Angels movie. Are they still making those? I have been watching Dark Angel, that show from 2000...
i don't think the concern is about finding an ultra-secure location, rather a "third-party" location that isn't your living room.
on their privacy like a big white elephant but are more cautious when we are talking about physical property.
Do the not realize what these companies are doing, ... or is it just me overrating my own privacy?