Posted by With the rising of E-commerce in Belgium, parcel delivery to individual customers has dramatically increased and still continuing.
According to estimates by The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals cited in a report by the Delaware Department of Transportation, up to 28% of your transportation cost is on that last part of the delivery chain. Delivery in the domicile introduces emissions, causes extra congestions. Sustainability is a topic truly cared about by most of the Europeans in Europe. As a consumer, there are so many services we can utilize without compromising the conveniences.
Do you order lots of things online? How do you manage the schedule of the deliveries? In Belgium, mostly if a postman passes by the customer’s home and finds no one answering the door, he will leave a small note and retry the next day or ask you to pick it up from a post store nearby. In most of the cases, it is very annoying for the postman to wait at the door and spend time writing on the note, worst of all, the delivering truck passes by producing emissions without any purpose!
In China, every 1 kilometer you can find a pickup point, so the mailman drops it automatically to the nearest store if they cannot get in touch with the receiver via phone calls, and yes, email communication is very rare in China, somehow getting a phone call from a stranger is not considered as intrusive.
In Belgium there are quite some different ways you can choose to reduce the footprint of the delivery vans, I have tried all of the following ways and find them absolutely helpful and convenient.
Deliver to a press shop nearby
I recently took up service from Bpost to redirected all deliveries towards my home address to a press store 2 minutes walking distance away, instead of getting a note in my mailbox and pick up manually some kilo-meters away the next days, I receive an email when the parcel arrives at the press store, I can pick it up the same day before the shop closes (19:00 h).
Deliver to your neighbour
One of the logistic companies delivers all my parcels to one of the (random) neighbors when I am not home, this is quite convenient, as I get notified by email when delivered, and pick up location is literally next door. However, this very company does not leave other choices for the customers, always deliver to one of the neighbors can be risky and irritating, what if the neighbor and I don’t really get along? What if the neighbor is not a good citizen and doesn’t give the package back to the customer?
I personally do not have any sort of contact with my neighbor (not proud of it), when he helps to receive my parcels and give them back to me repeatedly, I felt so guilty so I bought him a box of chocolate and slide in his mailbox.
Deliver to a pick up point
Most of the logistics providers have some pickup offices where you can deliver your parcel as destination address, when it arrives, you just need to drop by and pick it up during its open hours. There is a post store on my way home from work, so I can easily pick things up on the way, only problem is, if I get off work late, the post office is closed, then I need to get it the next day.
Deliver to a 24 hours locker room
Most of the service companies also provide a 24 hours available locker room for you to pick up the parcel, you receive a barcode at the delivery confirmation, by scanning it in the locker room, it will open the corresponding locker automatically.
http://www.linjiang-online.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/IMG_0375.movIt is so far the best option for me, as it does not have any limit to the hours of the day, you only need to make sure that you pick it up within one week, otherwise, the parcel is shipped back to the sender.
Deliver to the nearest actual store of your products ordered online
When I order Nespresso capsules, I let them get delivered to their actual store 5 kilometers away in a shopping center, I can pick it up during the weekend while going shopping, it is nothing urgent anyway.
There are lots of online sellers who deliver to their stores for free, if not urgent, why not?
Deliver to work place
As most of the time when the mailman arrives at your door, you are actually working in the office, why not deliver the parcel at workplace instead? Of course, this also depends on the company policy, try to research and see if you can utilize the company reception or mail room as a service!
Use modern technology
Did you see one person used a remote control to open the trunk of his Tesla and close it when the postman delivered it? Maybe in the future, there will be a smart mailbox, that the owner can give a one time access for the mailman to enter his mailroom
Check out Amazon’s key app in car delivery option:
Do you have any other ways to get your parcels delivered taking into the environmental impact? Let me know!
Related movie – The Mule
I would like to recommend a movie regarding this topic, The Mule (2018) , directed and lead role played by Clint Eastwood. The movie is about one 90 years old grandpa who one day started to transport a parcel for others, without knowing what he was transporting. I liked this movie because this 90 years old finally realized the importance of family over career and money after this “Parcel transporting” mission.
