The Lemon Fool

Why oh why do companies provide such weird delivery times? I ordered a new washing machine, and I got a text to say it will be delivered tomorrow between 11:17 and 13:17. Amazon, Royal Mail.... they all do it. The item will arrive between 10:37 and 11:37, or between 13:43 and 16:54.

OK, I know the answer, the computer generates the delivery schedule based on average speed, distance, etc. But I still find it irritating that they don't make it rather more human friendly and round to the nearest 15 or 30 minutes.
pedant doolally

Dear Mr d, we are pleased to inform you that your parcel will be delivered some time after, ooh, I dunno, one-ish, or three-ish, or maybe seven thirty if we can't get Pat on the road before the three thirty at Kempton Park, because it's his wife's birthday and he's invested her present on Norfolk Enchants, and he'll need to leave the country if the nag loses.

We'd have sent Josh out to you instead, but he's having to drive a bit more slowly these days because he's got another clutch of points on his licence, and it might have been one in the morning before you got your delivery, and we didn't think you'd like that either. Our Polish guy Wojciech has faithfully promised to deliver your parcel at 1 pm precisely, but we can't tell you exactly which time zone that will be in, because nor can he.

Relax, then, and trust in the totally spurious accuracy of our class-leading digital clock, which can predict the delivery time to the exact minute, but not the time of day. A perfect blend of modern horological styles which we feel sure will please everybody.

Have a nice day. Or afternoon, or whatever it turns out to be. Remember, in the words of our glorious founder: "Perfection is the enemy of the almost adequate".

BJ

Anyone waiting for a parcel from Yodel around Crowthorne? No tracking info? He has so many parcels he did not have time to update the system and reckons he will not be finished before 9:00 PM. He has some HelloFresh and Gousto deliveries that "should" be delivered before 6:00 PM. Hope you are not hungry

They generate an expected delivery time from the schedule, then add (usually) an hour either side, so you get oddly precise but inaccurate estimates.

I had a Wickes order the other week, it allowed me to track the driver doing his drops around the village. When he was 100 yards from our place (as the crow flies) he went back out the North end, onto the A5, and down the B roads to the villages on the other side of the fields behind us, returning about 3 hours and a dozen deliveries later.

He didn't have a route given to him, so did them alphabetically by postcode, and we are right on the boundary.

Paul

I had a new dishwasher delivered from John Lewis yesterday.... expected between 12:33 and 14:33 and actually arrived just after 1pm. Low precision but high resolution delivery times.
All I have to do now is decipher Bosch's installation instructions.... A big 2-sided sheet of diagrams without a word of explanation. I'm sure it will be easy enough in practice, but the diagrams are just daunting and meaningless. At least I've found a few videos on YouTube which will help.

--kiloran

DrFfybes wrote:They generate an expected delivery time from the schedule, then add (usually) an hour either side, so you get oddly precise but inaccurate estimates.

I had a Wickes order the other week, it allowed me to track the driver doing his drops around the village. When he was 100 yards from our place (as the crow flies) he went back out the North end, onto the A5, and down the B roads to the villages on the other side of the fields behind us, returning about 3 hours and a dozen deliveries later.

He didn't have a route given to him, so did them alphabetically by postcode, and we are right on the boundary.

Paul

That is hilarious and fascinating...but you need to get out more.

John

PS I'm going to try doing the same thing for my next tracked delivery

redsturgeon wrote:

DrFfybes wrote:I had a Wickes order the other week, it allowed me to track the driver doing his drops around the village. When he was 100 yards from our place (as the crow flies) he went back out the North end, onto the A5, and down the B roads to the villages on the other side of the fields behind us, returning about 3 hours and a dozen deliveries later.

He didn't have a route given to him, so did them alphabetically by postcode, and we are right on the boundary.

Paul

That is hilarious and fascinating...but you need to get out more.

I couldn't go out, I was waiting for the Ply and kitchen tops to finish the workshop.


Paul

DrFfybes wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:

DrFfybes wrote:I had a Wickes order the other week, it allowed me to track the driver doing his drops around the village. When he was 100 yards from our place (as the crow flies) he went back out the North end, onto the A5, and down the B roads to the villages on the other side of the fields behind us, returning about 3 hours and a dozen deliveries later.

He didn't have a route given to him, so did them alphabetically by postcode, and we are right on the boundary.

Paul

That is hilarious and fascinating...but you need to get out more.

I couldn't go out, I was waiting for the Ply and kitchen tops to finish the workshop.


Paul

LOL of course. Doh!

redsturgeon wrote:

DrFfybes wrote:I had a Wickes order the other week, it allowed me to track the driver doing his drops around the village. When he was 100 yards from our place (as the crow flies) he went back out the North end, onto the A5, and down the B roads to the villages on the other side of the fields behind us, returning about 3 hours and a dozen deliveries later.

That is hilarious and fascinating...but you need to get out more.

I had the same thing last year - the Amazon van got within fifty yards of our house, and then veered away and spent the next two hours going round all the industrial estates in a town five miles away. Finally got to us about 9pm.

Mind you, that was better than the driver who was due to deliver twelve bottles of wine, but who had to turn back to base at the very last moment because one bottle was broken, and it wasn't within his terms of employment to bring us eleven bottles and a refund note for the twelfth.

Need to get out more? Actually, I was planning on a night in. And eleven bottles would have been quite sufficient.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:

DrFfybes wrote:I had a Wickes order the other week, it allowed me to track the driver doing his drops around the village. When he was 100 yards from our place (as the crow flies) he went back out the North end, onto the A5, and down the B roads to the villages on the other side of the fields behind us, returning about 3 hours and a dozen deliveries later.

That is hilarious and fascinating...but you need to get out more.

I had the same thing last year - the Amazon van got within fifty yards of our house, and then veered away and spent the next two hours going round all the industrial estates in a town five miles away. Finally got to us about 9pm.

You tracked the van's movements for 2 hours?

Lootman wrote:

bungeejumper wrote:You tracked the van's movements for 2 hours?

There was nothing on the telly.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

Lootman wrote:

bungeejumper wrote:You tracked the van's movements for 2 hours?

There was nothing on the telly.

BJ

Did you run a HDMI lead from the laptop and watch the tracking on the telly?

DrFfybes wrote:

bungeejumper wrote:There was nothing on the telly.

Did you run a HDMI lead from the laptop and watch the tracking on the telly?

Naaah, I just bluetoothed it to my virtual reality headset, so that I could track the delivery while simultaneously flying through walls at the Colosseum. C'mon, doesn't everybody?

BJ

DrFfybes wrote:They generate an expected delivery time from the schedule, then add (usually) an hour either side, so you get oddly precise but inaccurate estimates.

I had a Wickes order the other week, it allowed me to track the driver doing his drops around the village. When he was 100 yards from our place (as the crow flies) he went back out the North end, onto the A5, and down the B roads to the villages on the other side of the fields behind us, returning about 3 hours and a dozen deliveries later.

He didn't have a route given to him, so did them alphabetically by postcode, and we are right on the boundary.

Paul

I think I can explain this behaviour.

The stuff that people paid extra delivery costs for, to ensure a pre 12:00pm delivery, gets priority.

Which means that the rest of the stuff for that day gets delivered in the afternoon, even if the delivery address was adjacent to an address that had an express morning delivery.

Watis

kiloran wrote:I had a new dishwasher delivered from John Lewis yesterday.... expected between 12:33 and 14:33 and actually arrived just after 1pm. Low precision but high resolution delivery times.
All I have to do now is decipher Bosch's installation instructions.... A big 2-sided sheet of diagrams without a word of explanation. I'm sure it will be easy enough in practice, but the diagrams are just daunting and meaningless. At least I've found a few videos on YouTube which will help.

--kiloran

Recently our ancient Bosch dishwasher finally reached the end of its life - it needed a part which was no longer available, however a new Bosch was provided as part of the service plan. But it didn't include fitting. Fortunately my wife forbade me to attempt it - a skilled fitter was employed. And then we paid the council to take the old one away. But we were warned that it could take many weeks before they could fit in an uplift and they couldn't provide any warning when this could take place - so we were required to leave it sitting out in front of the house (for the many weeks). My advice is - get a fitter, and ensure they take away the old one.

doolally wrote:Why oh why do companies provide such weird delivery times? I ordered a new washing machine, and I got a text to say it will be delivered tomorrow between 11:17 and 13:17. Amazon, Royal Mail.... they all do it. The item will arrive between 10:37 and 11:37, or between 13:43 and 16:54.

OK, I know the answer, the computer generates the delivery schedule based on average speed, distance, etc. But I still find it irritating that they don't make it rather more human friendly and round to the nearest 15 or 30 minutes.
pedant doolally

Assuming you actually want to include the entire delivery window in the rounding 11.17 to 13.17 would become 11.15 to 13.30 or even 11.00 to 13.30. How does adding 30 minutes to a 2 hour delivery window make it better? If you can't handle anything but quarters and halves just convert it yourself.

A two hour delivery window is a massive improvement compared to pre-internet delivery times.

Even as a child I couldn't understand why I, or anyone, should 'allow 28 days for delivery' when ordering stuff by phone or mail. What could possibly take so long?

Thanks to Amazon and others, no-one can get away with quoting such a long lead time nowadays.

Watis

Let's hope the suppliers don't get one of these computers https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-61647134
That would enable them to calculate delivery times to a resolution of a femtosecond (plus or minus an hour )

--kiloran

kiloran wrote:Let's hope the suppliers don't get one of these computers https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-61647134
That would enable them to calculate delivery times to a resolution of a femtosecond (plus or minus an hour )

--kiloran

Even when you take delivery of a quantum computer, you don't know whether you've actually got one until you open the box.

Watis