Google buys parcel storage service for Christmas
'We have made rage a thing of the past'. Except at Amazon
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Google has acquired Canadian startup Bufferbox for an undisclosed sum.
The self-serve parcel pick-up station outfit, which started life at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, announced it had been scooped up by the advertising giant on Friday.
"As online shopping becomes a bigger part of how you buy products, we look forward to playing a part in bringing that experience to the next level. We are happy to share that it will be business as usual for our users and we are looking forward to continuing to build out the service," Bufferbox said in a blog post on its website.
It claims to make "rage-inspiring missed deliveries a thing of the past."
Bufferbox users arrange for goods they've ordered online to be shipped to one of its pick-up stations. Punters receive a PIN code via email, which apparently then "magically" opens a door with their package contained inside.
Bufferbox started out as a pilot scheme at the University of Waterloo before being deployed across the Greater Toronto area.
Online retail colossus Amazon already has a similar service dubbed Locker Delivery. ®
COMMENTS
Too much to hope for
> goods they've ordered online to be shipped to one of its pick-up stations.
> Amazon already has a similar service
Why not just deliver stuff when people are at home?
If all the delivery vans are standing idle after five-thirty and all weekend, too (as all the couriers are organised around business hours, not real people's hours) wouldn't it just be sensible to let delivery people have the chance to earn some overtime, or take a second job by offering EVENING DELIVERIES, rather than create and operate an entirely new, and inconvenient, service.
No need for innovation. Just use the existing infrastructure for longer hours.
'We have made rage a thing of the past'.
Statements like that make me very, very angry.
Royal Mail
It doesn't help that Royal Mail charge extra - on top of the delivery fee - for Post Office collection; otherwise, you have to collect from their parcel depot instead. These days, they'll deliver to next door instead, unless you specifically tell them not to - which happens to work quite well here most of the time.
Worse, last year I received a "we tried to deliver, come and get it" card from them - only to be told they couldn't find the parcel. They admitted they hadn't delivered it, but they had no idea what the parcel was or who had sent it, so there was no way to contact the sender either: it just disappeared.
On the other hand, Citylink once missed a delivery to me (new laser printer) and insisted on collection from a depot 35 miles away - where, fortunately, my mother happened to be going anyway later that week. So, she was able to collect a laptop from them the next day. Yes, a laptop ... suddenly, Citylink became more cooperative when they needed to retrieve the £1000 parcel they'd given her by mistake: it turned out one of their drivers lived near me and was able to swap the laptop for my printer on his way home that night. Not an option until they needed to do it to correct their fiasco, though!
I for one welcome our new lock-box overlords: sounds like a much more convenient route than the usual "go to our depot miles away, between 04:40 and 04:42 next Thursday, with a DNA sample and five different people's passports".
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