As it was predicted, so it has come to pass: In an effort to combat “porch pirates” who love swiping any boxes left outside, Amazon is launching a new service that allows delivery people to walk into customers’ homes to drop off packages. [More]
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Your Holiday Shopping Could Get More Expensive, Thanks To UPS
By 6.19.17
If you were planning to do your holiday shopping from the comfort of home, scooping up bargains with a click, you should know that you may have to pay a little more this year since UPS is tacking on a holiday delivery surcharge during the busiest weeks of the year. [More]
FedEx Won’t Throw My Package Over The Fence — Even Though I Asked Them To
By 5.1.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
We’ve all seen videos featuring delivery drivers showing off their athleticism, chucking, tossing, throwing, and otherwise unceremoniously dumping items. This tends to annoy both the recipient and the sender, who sometimes has to replace damaged items. It would seem to make sense for FedEx to have a “don’t throw packages” policy, but what if you need the driver to give your parcel that extra push? [More]
UPS Testing Residential Drone Deliveries Launched From Trucks
By 2.21.17
After first testing the idea of using drones to deliver packages to extra remote locations, UPS is making its move into more residential skies with octocopters that can be launched from roving trucks. [More]
Amazon Files Patent For Parachuting Packages From Drones
By 2.15.17 — Updated: 2.21.17
Now that Amazon’s Prime Air delivery drones have made their first dropoff, it seems the e-commerce giant wants to make the process even more efficient: Instead of unmanned aerial vehicles landing to set a package on the ground, Amazon has cooked up an idea for fly-by deliveries. [More]
FedEx Customers Will Be Able To Drop Off, Pick Up Packages At Walgreens Stores
By 1.11.17
We’ve all seen what can happen when a package is left out in the open or otherwise unattended, but not everyone can be home during the day, live in a doorman building, or have their stuff delivered to an office. Also? Some carriers just hate coming to your house. In an effort to solve these problems, FedEx and Walgreens announced plans to put delivery lockers in as thousands of Walgreens stores by the end of next year. [More]
Ordering Takeout Doesn’t Mean The Driver Gets To Take Your Packages
By 12.22.16
Getting packages stolen from your front doorstep is unpleasant, no matter who you are or what time of year it is, and knowing that you or a neighbor actually let the thief inside must be even worse. We buzz delivery people who are strangers in and give them get a kind of implicit trust, and one delivery driver in Chicago is accused of violating that trust by grabbing packages on his way out the door. [More]
Thieves Think They’re Stealing Gift Delivery; Make Off With Boxes Of Family Heirlooms & Dad’s Ashes Instead
By 12.22.16
‘Tis the season for thieves across the country to swoop down upon doorsteps, porches, and stoops to swipe all those gift deliveries waiting outside folks’ homes. But somewhere in Ohio there’s a thief who now has boxes of very personal items — including the ashes of a dearly departed dad — that are worthless to the thief, but mean the world to the family from which they were stolen. [More]
Video Shows UPS Worker Dumping Packages Over A Garden Wall
By 12.19.16
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, or so they say. But when it comes to overcoming a delivery obstacle, that way shouldn’t involve simply dumping packages marked “fragile” on the ground. [More]
Store Says FedEx Allowed Homeless Man To Sign For Delivery He Then Stole
By 12.14.16
It’s always upsetting when someone steals your packages after they’ve been delivered, but it’s even more of a bummer when the company doing the deliveries apparently puts that package into the hands of the thief. A California shop is pretty steamed at FedEx, claiming the carrier allowed a homeless man to sign for its packages, which have now gone missing. [More]
Video Seems To Show Man Instructing Boy To Swipe Package From Homeowner’s Porch
By 10.24.16 — Updated: 10.31.16
It’s bad enough to steal a package from a stranger’s porch, but enlisting the help of a kid to do your dirty work? That’s even worse. [More]
UPS Testing Using Drones For Package Deliveries In Remote Locations
By 9.23.16
Whether it’s robotic carrier pigeons or unmanned aircraft dropping off burritos, drones are big in the delivery world. UPS is the latest company to take to the drone-filled skies and see if the aerial vehicles are the right fit for its delivery system. [More]
Video Shows Amazon Delivery Guy’s Friend Stealing Package Right After It’s Delivered
By 9.20.16
We’ve seen strangers and passers-by swipe packages right off the front porch of someone’s house, but it’s not as often that we find delivery workers teaming up with their friends to steal the goods they just dropped off. [More]
Amazon May Or May Not Be Trying To Overtake UPS And FedEx
By 8.31.16
When you see a UPS or FedEx truck in your neighborhood on a weekday, or a U.S. Postal Service truck on a Sunday, they’re probably there with some kind of delivery from an online retailer, and that retailer is likely to be Amazon. As more of our everyday shopping happens online, someone will need to bring those items to our doorsteps, but it may not necessarily be the carriers we’re used to. [More]
UPS Testing Saturday Ground Package Delivery
By 7.15.16
With FedEx and the Postal Service expanding their weekend delivery options as more Americans go online to buy stuff, UPS is finally getting around to a test of offering Saturday delivery for ground shipments.
[More]
Ryanair Getting Into The Hotel Business?
By 6.10.16
Could Ryanair be the Amazon of air travel? If the company’s executives have their say, the answer is a resounding “yes.” The cheapo European airline is taking steps to reach that goal with plans to launch an accommodation service for the destinations it flies in and out of. [More]
UPS Will Now Let Customers Follow Packages Out For Delivery In Real Time
By 5.13.16
No more wondering what your package gets up to while it’s out for delivery — did it stop for a drink and miss its connecting flight? — with a new service UPS is rolling out that allows customers to track their shipments in the final stage, from one second to the next. [More]
