Just a comment on real life experience of shipping by Discogs, eBay and Amazon Marketplace.

I bought three LP’s last Wednesday on Discogs. One arrived Saturday after being marked “Shipped” on Thursday, One has just been marked “Shipped” this afternoon (2 Nov) and the third one still says “Payment Pending” despite me paying last Wednesday.

I also bought three LP’s off Amazon Marketplace on the same day (proof of impulse purchasing if any required), two from Music Magpie and one from Seller Records. The Amazon Seller delivery estimate was 29th October to 18th November. It arrived yesterday, 31st Oct. The other two (assuming Music Magpie is one seller) posted on Fri 28th but no sign of either yet  as at 2 Nov and Amazon says delivery will occur between 31st Oct and 11 Nov. Why such a wide choice? How many days does it take Royal Mail to deliver a 2nd class postal packet? If they deliver on 11th Nov, where have they kept it since 28th Oct?? Surely easier to deliver it than store it for no useful purpose?

Delivery is so haphazard it’s impossible to decide whether to stay in or go out saying “I can’t let postal deliveries rule my life”.  If I do the latter Sod’s Law dictates the postie will have with him for delivery on that day items too large for the letterbox. I might not have an awful lot to do but I don’t need the grief of driving to town and finding parking to collect something that was actually on my doorstep yesterday.

Amazon Prime has something going for it but again, they deliver from 9am to 9pm so unless I’m lucky and get a delivery at the early end of the day I end up staying in all day anyway. I’ve had 9pm deliveries before.

There is no solution other than a GPS satellite tracker attached to Postie’s head. Customers can follow his progress on their phones/tablets and AA Route Planner can give a pretty accurate estimate of his arrival time at your location given the website has postie’s round pre-programmed.

This is necessary because our postman arrives between 10:30am and 4pm. Usually it’s around 1-2:30pm but it can be any of those other times in the same week. Thus I can’t plan. Today I stayed in between 11am and when postie arrived at 1:30. Of course, because I stayed in, he had no vinyl.

eBay know we impulse purchasers want instant delivery so we can hide away our purchase in shame and not be constantly reminded day after day it might arrive today. So sellers are under pressure to dispatch same day or sooner! It’s the way forward. Amazon now have same day delivery for some items. HMG will have them build in a cooling off period when the purchase can be cancelled e.g. when the buyer sobers up or realises  he has no-where to put a life-size Dalek. “It seemed like a good idea at the time”. Purchasing with a click of the mouse is so easy once you’re registered at the website. Too easy really.

How many things have you purchased that you later found you already had? Or items you purchased that, when you woke the following day, you couldn’t conceive of ever being in a mind-set you had to be in that allowed  you to  purchase this now unwanted item.

But we can’t all be wrong. The rich surround themselves with art and expensive antiques and they’re doing alright, aren’t they? Mind you, they have a butler to stay in for the postman and a hallway the size of Rutland for the Dalek.