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Mentioned previously on SN, Amazon has started direct-to-car deliveries:
Amazon is expanding its in-home delivery service called Key to include deliveries to trunks and back seats of cars. The service is available only to Amazon Prime members in 37 cities who have a 2015 or newer Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac or Volvo with an active OnStar or Volvo On Call account.
Essentially, these are already connected cars that can be remotely unlocked — in this case for package delivery, which Amazon promises within a four-hour window. The shopper has to confirm that they've parked within range of the delivery location — in a publicly accessible area — and can track the progress through the Amazon Key app.
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Amazon Wants to Deliver Packages Inside Your Car
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For recreational use only.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by requerdanos on Thursday April 26 2018, @03:23PM (5 children)
As I understand the problem this is trying to solve, it involves mailbox size and mailbox security. I'll use my mail and package delivery options as an example.
I have a post office box. Small items are delivered to the box, which is locked and secure. Larger items are held securely until I pick them up at the service counter at the post office. So far, so good.
Trouble in paradise: Aside from having to leave and go pick up my mail, the post office box has a drawback in that many things can't be shipped to one, because UPS, Fedex, and other courier delivery services can't deliver to post office boxes.
So I have to order many things delivered to my home. The security vanishes: My home address is so-and-so apartment complex, unit number so and so. My mailbox is a single unlocked mailbox in a centrally located grid of unlocked mailboxes. Small packages are placed in the unsecure mailbox.
Larger packages are placed outside my front door. Sometimes leaning against the door, sometimes just sitting by the door, whatever.
No security. It's a thieves' paradise. They can browse, steal what they like. I personally haven't had packages stolen (touch wood), but I personally know those who've lost hundreds of dollars worth of expensive stuff that was placed outside their door but which vanished mysteriously.
Some shippers won't accept a P.O. Box address for shipping, and then send things USPS, which annoys me greatly--security gone, for seemingly no reason.
If you've stuck with my rambling story so far, I now come to the point: If Amazon (or whomever) delivers your package to your refrigerator, or inside your front door, or into your locked car, then it is effectively delivered to a large, secure mailbox. Sure, it's possible to steal things from a car or home, but it's an order of magnitude harder to do so than to just pick up a package and walk off with it.
I am not going to give Amazon access to my front door or car, but I can see that there are situations where this would be preferable to losing a large amount of things to theft, and I appreciate Amazon's propensity to pursue any idea for delivery, no matter how silly, in the hopes that it pan out and provide some sort of solution for someone's problem somewhere.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday April 26 2018, @04:14PM (1 child)
To me, this is a problem begging for a REAL solution, such large dedicated secure delivery boxes built directly in to houses and apartments.
Look back in time a few decades, and it was not really all that common for someone to have large items shipped to them. People would instead drive a few hours to a somewhat specialized big store and buy things. Stores actually carried common things people needed. Typically only highly specialized stuff would need to be shipped across the country.
But today almost EVERYTHING has to be shipped. (After all, it is all coming from china anyway). And somehow people feel obligated to use the internet and toy smartphones to buy things rather than going to a brick and mortar store. On the flip side, many brick and mortar stores have closed up to "reduce costs" and ship common items from only one location wherever property happens to be cheaper.
Uppity folks today even feel the need to have ultra-common items delivered rather than driving down to Walmart.
Anyway, the point is there needs to be a proper solution to this. Letting people in to your trunk is a bad idea. But right now that is all some people have. A better solution would involve something integrated in to the design of a house or apartment. Those can not be added easily or quickly, but long term should be focused on rather than cockamamie workarounds.
On the other hand, with how nuts shipping costs have gotten recently, it would make more sense to bring back some of the larger brick and mortar specialty stores.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Thursday April 26 2018, @11:46PM
There are *many* proper solutions to this problem.
First of all, the concept of having unlocked mailboxes in an apartment complex is just absurd to begin with IMO. We've got locked boxes at mine -- the mail carrier has one key, which unlocks an entire row of boxes at a time then we each have our own key to our individual box. Basically, when the mail carrier uses their key, the entire row folds out from the top and he can load mail in the top, but when we use our keys the door to that one box opens to the side. No problem.
But of course that's just mail. For packages...they go to the leasing office or they get held at the post office or delivery service. Mostly they'll take everything directly to the leasing office and I can pick it up there, but since their hours kinda suck I often request to pick them up at the nearest depot or store of the delivery company. USPS, UPS, FedEx, they all let you do that.
The other option is drop boxes, which I've used a few times as well, mostly because they're "open" 24/7. The local grocery store a couple blocks away has one for UPS, and I can go into the app any time from when I place my order up to the moment it gets delivered and have them divert it (for free) to the drop box. Or to a nearby UPS store. Or to the UPS depot. Or to my leasing office, or my front porch, or my neighbor's place...there's no shortage of options.
This is just Amazon's way to make up for a lack of physical presence. UPS can get me a package at the depot, or at the store, or at the drop box, or sometimes they even stick it on another truck and try again later. Amazon doesn't have stores, they don't have many drop box locations, they don't have a ton of trucks driving all over town that can just try again later. So they expect their customers to provide their own infrastructure instead, along with all of the costs and risks associated with that. Amazon doesn't want to pay UPS[/FedEx/USPS/etc], nor do they want to pay the costs of replacing UPS, so they figure they can boost their profits by forcing their customers to pay for it in a way that disguises the cost -- ie, the $30/month that it costs for OnStar would pay for a heck of a lot of UPS shipping, but Amazon gets to claim that shipping is actually cheaper because they don't consider that $30/month.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday April 26 2018, @05:51PM
You know that Amazon already solved this problem right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Locker [wikipedia.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Thursday April 26 2018, @07:00PM (1 child)
Several valid points. That said if companies won't ship to PO boxes why on earth would they ship (or deliver) to a car?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 27 2018, @01:51AM
> if companies won't ship to PO boxes why on earth would they ship (or deliver) to a car?
Obviously, it's more sportsmanlike to have a moving target.