Universal Coverage

[scotia]

OK - I know its my fault, but I feel obliged to let off a bit of steam concerning the lack of universal coverage for deliveries around the UK. When I go off on holiday to delightful spots like Assynt I always take my laptop with me - e.g. for urgent communications to the avidly listening outside world as to how the fishing is progressing. This time I took my laptop, but forgot to take its power supply, and it being rather elderly, its battery life barely extended to an hour. I discovered this on the day of my arrival (1st June) - but thought no problem - I used the remaining battery life to find a replacement power supply on Amazon, and since I have Amazon Prime, I was promised next day delivery (to my home address in Central Scotland). I had checked that Amazon would deliver to the Lochinver Post Office (open 7 days), so I had confidence that I could change the delivery address to the Post office and hopefully get it soon. Instead I was given an indeterminate delivery date - sometime between the 5th and the 11th June. I gave up.
Now I appreciate that delivery to Lochinver may take a bit longer than to Central Scotland. But why 4 to 10 days? Did they plan to set off someone walking to Lochinver, carrying my purchase?

[kiloran]

Now I appreciate that delivery to Lochinver may take a bit longer than to Central Scotland. But why 4 to 10 days? Did they plan to set off someone walking to Lochinver, carrying my purchase?

Simple.... the drivers normally deliver to boring urban centres like Glasgow or Leeds or whatever. Given the chance to go to Lochinver, they take the opportunity to slow the pace a little and take in the scenery and the peace and quiet as they travel. Maybe a bit of fly fishing on the way.

--kiloran

[vrdiver]

Now I appreciate that delivery to Lochinver may take a bit longer than to Central Scotland. But why 4 to 10 days? Did they plan to set off someone walking to Lochinver, carrying my purchase?

I suspect they're building up enough deliveries to make a van load, or at least to minimise their costs. Imagine if they have one delivery per day to Lochinver; by only delivering every 7th day they've reduced delivery costs by 6/7ths...

OK, one parcel a day is a bit extreme, but they'll be making up delivery rounds trying to minimise costs, so the algorithm will try to respect your latest delivery date (10 days) and be looking to group packages by location or minimum total mileage (or similar logic, depending on their routing software).

In more populous areas, the same activity occurs, but the volumes mean they can get the optimisation required to manage costs within a single day, so you don't see the variance in delivery dates.