I think the gig economy should have a similar Pedlar's License. There should be some paperwork. Maybe no more hard than Basic Food Hygiene that you get working in the food trade.

This would also allow local authorities to refuse. So if they didn't want the food delivery guys then they could just restrict licences.

Standards, e.g. lights on bikes, MOST for cars, all should be part of this license for doing door to door deliveries.

Standardisation could result in no drivers getting it wrong whether hired the UPS or FedEx way.

If the driver ID was a standardized way of doing tracking then that could even be part of the final mile procedure.

If we had rules about what a license should promote (such as public safety, accountability, etc) and what it should try to prevent (rent seeking, protectionism) and metrics by which to measure this (even if an impartial panel), we could possible greatly increase the number of licenses we require while also lowering the bar of entry for many existing licensed businesses.

I understand this would be a tricky path to take. It's layering bureaucracy, which is often problematic. But I'm not sure we necessarily want random unaccountable people driving around throwing packages at us, nor doctors practicing without experience, and I don't think having to pay $1000 and take a one week course for licensure to deliver packages for Amazon is useful either.

1: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/04/14/524007928/episo...

Not only would that not help your thieving at all, but the company that hired you having all your info on file would make you much more likely to get caught. Assuming you are robbing houses you can deliver too.

Putting on a fake delivery uniform and carrying around boxes that aren't meant to be delivered makes a lot more sense if you just need to case the houses before robbing.

plenty of people have life long careers of house burglary.

here are two, but there are very many others.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/16/burglar-with-crim...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/12187965/Career...

Yes. Fedex, UPS, and USPS drivers clearly have a much better grasp of how to correctly handle delivery exception scenarios. That's probably because they actually train their employees, and schedule them so they can learn their routes. You're never going to get that with with the short-term gig-economy randos Amazon hires.

Yes, actually there are background checks.

What is actually unprofessional about Amazon contracting package delivery to random individuals?

I'm not in favor of it, but I haven't thought about it enough to have a good argument about the topic. @viperscape does bring up good points though: personal vehicles and the perception that Amazon has "granted permission" to random people to enter property and handle their goods. What are the arguments in favor or Amazon's new delivery model?

What's stopping a random guy from walking around taking pictures through all the windows when they see you leave? Nothing. Dude just dresses up like the meter reader and does whatever he wants. Even if you "catch" the guy he did nothing illegal. In most places it's totally fine to stroll around on other people's land unless "no trespassing" is clearly marked. Got one of those big signs in your front yard?

If you ever leave the house I'm sure pictures of you with your family have been streamed on countless webcams over the years and probably live TV.

You have no real security unless you've got a cement room with no windows and a metal door. Anything less is just to make people feel better

Your perceived privacy violations sound pretty mundane to me.

Houses are easy enough to find. You don't need to get a job as a delivery person to find where houses are. The fact that they delivered a package to your house doesn't make you any more of a target than anyone else. Maybe if you were having gold bricks delivered and they were clearly marked "expensive gold bricks" on the package.

That or the dude legitimately expects white glove delivery for bottom shelf pricing, which is even more absurd.

My experience has been far better with Amazon's deliverers than with shipping companies. I even had one who left a package under my doormat early in the morning and then noticed our lights come on so she came back to let us know it was there.

With UPS, it's more likely I check my tracking number after being home all day and see it go from 'out for delivery' to 'waiting for pickup at UPS store' with no notification. They don't even make the attempt to deliver it, and that makes things less efficient (loading the truck up just to unload it again, making me wait all morning just to have to go to the store anyway, etc.)

So yeah, personally it makes much more sense to me from all kinds of angles for Amazon to handle this stuff directly rather than deal with UPS or Fedex. Those companies are fine for getting a package from me to someone in Halifax, but for getting something from Amazon's warehouse an hour away to my doorstep, it makes no sense.

Google should start developing warehouse technology and a delivery network in order to start competing directly with Amazon. Their current strategy is just a coat of paint on declining businesses.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100017752821017751 [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113798030922653260

Also target has amazing returns. You can return online orders to the store - not like you can do that with amazon. I believe Walmart is the same.

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/kohls-returns-amazon-how-to-2...

[1]: https://www.myhermes.de

I ordered something from Thinkgeek once. It got from New Jersey to Montreal in two days, and it took them a week to actually get it to me. They'd no-show on days customer service told me they'd deliver, then they'd deliver on days customer service told me they wouldn't be showing up. That was the day I learned the value of shipping things to work.

I had a replacement MacBook power adapter shipped out. They left a notice once, and then customer service told me that there'd been three failed attempts and no further attempt would be made. When I asked where the package was, the agent didn't seem to know, but guessed that it was at the depot. When I got to the depot I gave my delivery slip to the guy behind the counter, who came back and said he couldn't find the package. I told him to go look again and this time he actually found it.

I ordered a kit from 23andMe. DHL tried to deliver it once and then returned it to sender. I got them to send me another one (at a $25 fee), which DHL never delivered. I tried a third one, and this one was "at the depot". I went there and waited an hour in a small cement room with nothing but a chair in it while they looked. Eventually they came back and said they'd given up.

Every single encounter I've had with DHL has shown they're completely incapable of performing the core aspect of their business: getting a thing from one person to another. Worse still, they don't really seem to care or even understand that a screw-up is happening.

Various articles in the media state that he does read them, and typically forwards to the relevant executive in charge.

I used to be able to nearly double my Prime length this way. The shippers in my area have gotten much better though recently and I haven't had a late package in almost a year.

Edit: Hm, they may have quietly discontinued it recently. It used to be listed on this page:

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=201117450

In other words, if they "guarantee" tomorrow at 5 PM and it doesn't show then it's late, whereas if they "estimate" tomorrow at 5 PM and it doesn't show then it's whatever, call back tomorrow.

Well, you would specify where it came from by mentioning Walmart or Target.

>If they send me dog food instead, how do I get in touch with customer service? Is it Google's customer service or Target's?

The same customer service you ordered the product from and was clearly stated in the email confirmation you received from either Walmart or Target.

Really? Amazon is often very late with Prime deliveries in my experience, only hitting the 2-day mark maybe 60% of the time. And when the miss the delivery (which I am paying $100/year for!!) there are no options presented for customer service or support, just "check back here in 3 days and if your package still hasn't arrived we'll present you with more options".

Meanwhile I can call Google any time and get great customer support for the products I pay for. I'd vastly prefer the Google delivery experience that I'd expect them to create compared to what Amazon Prime is now.

We must not use the same Google.

Lack of available support is one of the most cited reasons for not buying Google hardware, especially their own Chromebooks.

As a bit of an outlier, Google Fiber's customer service has been stellar for me though.

I suspect it has to do with the kind of things I order, and where I'm located, but Amazon deliveries have always arrived within two days for me (sometimes one day). Exceptions being when I order stuff that is not eligible for prime, but I know that at the time of ordering. Their customer service has also been excellent in my experience.

That said, I haven't had a terrible experience with Google yet, but I've barely used their support. I'll find out soon, because my Google-purchased phone started the infamous bootloop the other day.

I wonder if that depends on a city. I have ordered probably over a thousand things from amazon over the years and it was late for 2 day delivery maybe once or twice. And customer service is also the biggest reason why I use amazon even if the price is higher. I know that I can online chat with someone within minutes and they solve my problem most of the time. I had issues with paid google g suite or whatever they call it now, account and I don’t want to deal with their non existent customer service again.

For what, specifically? Because this is the opposite of reality for everyone else.