Couriering Favour.

I love shopping. I fully understand it doesn't always have to involve a purchase, but an afternoon's pleasure can be gained from just wandering from shop to shop on the High Street. The advent of online shopping has brought me even greater satisfaction, curled up on the sofa with tablet or laptop, to browse and select what I desire. It's pure heaven. 

However after one has clicked on the Pay Now button, it can be a descent into hell. 

My partner and I have just been furnishing a flat in Birmingham How brilliant that we can sit and select items of furniture we want for our new abode while sitting on our sofa at home. Alas, the whole process has been a nightmare. Not because of the quality of the brands we have dealt with, or with the goods we have bought, but with the atrocious unpredictable passage of getting the goods from shop into our flat. 

Most websites, whether it's monoliths like Amazon, or small boutique design firms, don't inform you who the courier will be until after you have paid for the goods. Then they’ve got you.  They've got your money. You’ve bought the goods. The process of getting them to you, is really secondary.

My heart sinks with an email mentioning the words "Yodel" or "My Hermes". Neither of whom have any record of reliability on delivering to me either in London or in Birmingham. A considerable amount of our furniture, and therefore a considerable spend has come from Made.Com. Classy trendy modern pieces ideally suited to a apartment on an upper floor. Made.Com won't commit to who will be delivering your furniture. You only find this out when an email arrives from them a day or two before delivery telling you in whose hands your goods lie. 

Sadly they haven't managed to live up to even the lowest of expectations with ours. A chair we ordered last year in London which was quoted as four days delivery on the website actually took seven weeks. On this occasion, a sofa ordered over a month ago with delivery set for 10 days, has still not arrived. Another item has been sent in two parts by a courier firm who won't deliver above the third floor, even with a lift (although there seems to been some confusion as to the rules on this). Why would a company with a reputation such as Made.com partner with a courier firm on these terms. 

Having paid over £400 for piece of furniture, I don't expect to have to lug it into my flat on my own. And we do have a lift. Two of them. And an extremely helpful concierge. Other suppliers have ensured we have suffered a bed that has been delivered, twice, damaged on both occasions. Yet there are shining examples out there that show how this could work. 

Take DPD, who have a very accessible app available which allows the customer to communicate delivery preferences to the company. Smaller items can be left in lockers or collected from nearby shops. Larger items allow you to send instructions to the delivery men as to what it's best to do with the item. We’ve come across some smaller outfits such as BJS who managed to send furniture conveyed by two smiling chatty Brummies who made the delivery a joy. If I thought all the goods were being delivered by them, I'd be back to Made.com straight away. 

But sadly that's not the case. The experience of shopping isn't just selecting the goods, it's the whole process. Until the goods are in my hands, I don't feel satisfied. There's nothing nicer than walking out of a shop with your goods parceled up in a nice new carrier bag, even if you have had to pay an extra 5p for the privilege. You know that when you get home you can unwrap them and use them. 

Online shopping doesn't offer this. Deliveries late, often which you are not notified of, as in the case of Made.com. You have to logon to their website in order to find out that there is a delay in the first place. Delivery at times that are inconvenient. Perhaps the couriers don't actually realise that most of us work. This is how we can afford the goods in the first place. Waiting for a delivery means taking time off work and that costs money. 

And a smile costs nothing. Yes, we do appreciate you walked up two flights of stairs, or this is your twentieth delivery of the day, but for us it's important. That smile can mean that we will buy from that shop again. And that could mean another delivery for you. 

So perhaps it's time for retailers and couriers laike to up their game. If this seriously is the future of shopping, as we move away from the High Street, perhaps it's time to make it work for the customer, and not the retailer. Perhaps it's time for the man in the flat cap and the overalls to realise that if the customer wasn't having the delivery, he wouldn't have a job. 

And then perhaps we'll all get what we want