Ian
So,
you are an ecommerce seller and you have received an order. You ship
the product via FedEx or UPS and let the customer know that he can
track the shipment from his end. Have you ever wondered if the parcel
alerts from FedEx and UPS are reliable or not? The customer receives
several messages from the shipper about the shipment’s location,
expected delivery time and such. You are also privy to the
information.
While
tracking shipments is made easy with GPS, there are a few roadblocks
with this. Technology is the least of the problems here because your
UPS delivery guy has a handheld (the one you sign once you receive a
shipment) that can trace his global position accurately. Security
might become a problem with accurate, real time position tracking.
For example, a valuable shipment is better off without such trackers
erey minute for it might invite theft.
But
the truth is, no one needs accurate real time tracking information.
If I know that a product I ordered from the East Coast is on its way
to the West Coast and will be delivered in 2 days, I am satisfied. At
least, most of us are satisfied with such information. Now, when a
parcel alert appears on your phone and it says you will receive it
today or tomorrow, the driver makes a note of it and delivers in
whatever order that he chooses. We all need to know when to be home
to collect the parcel. So, UPS provides a 2 hour window. So, at some
point, parcel alerts are not very reliable. Factoring whatever we
have discussed above, you can see that manual intervention can mess
with delivery timings and real time location of the shipment.
There
are also weather disruptions and manmade problems that can hamper
deliveries. So, a parcel alert on a rainy day is to be taken with a
pinch of salt. When a political rally is on full swing, a delivery
executive, despite his alert to the customer, will not be able to go
ahead with the delivery. Parcel alerts are only indicative.
In
an era where drone deliveries are being explored and aggregators like
Uber offer the customer the advantage of seeing exact location of
service providers on a real time scenario, parcel alerts are expected
to be merged with greater accuracy, efficiency and technology.
