The Delivery Economy Redux

Of late I've been living in Los Angeles, enjoying Gigabit Ethernet Broadband from Race Communications, and now mostly seeing speeds in the 800 megabit range. Their tech support is exquisite and their people first rate. By living in the nation's second biggest metropolitan area I've also been exposed to what I'm referring to as the delivery economy. Literally whatever you want can be delivered, and between Amazon Fresh, Now, Pantry plus Google Express I've experienced the good and the bad sides of it.

The good and great comes from Google Express. What you order is to you in about 4 hours or the next day. You place your order from say Costco, get your. Costco membership points, avoid the lines at Costco (and are they always packed) and the Express team brings them to your door. Amazon is a whole different story. As an Amazon Prime member delivery is really like playing Russian Roulette. It may come via UPS and my super switched on UPS driver Darren, who after the first package he delivered knew me and my name on sight when he saw me at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Don't dare call him a delivery man. He's a route manager and his polish and professionalism is to be recognized. But the packages that come via the US Postal Service, well, you'll get lies of attempted delivery when your home with the mailman (not our regular carrier-she's awesome) on the team that handles the Amazon packages, reporting business closed when the UPS Store is open, or deliveries to the flat never being dropped off because the mail carrier doesn't know how to wait for the property office to open or worse, just leaving the Amazon Fresh totes in the unattended lobby where the Velcro sealed bag can easily be taken, touched or tampered with.

Then there's Uber Eats. For $10.00 you can get lunch in ten minutes from some of L.A.'s finest eateries. Then there's Postmates-order from anywhere, get anything and someone will drive, pay, pick up and deliver. The experience has been hit or miss, but my last experience with awesome Korean food was worth giving them thumbs up on an angle.

And lastly there's Task Rabbit. My two taskers were awesome. Between household organization and putting furniture together from Ikea, the experience was nothing short of delightful. What's more, they show up on time, provide really good conversation and made my move in really, really smooth.

That's the delivery economy in action, and I can safely say, other than Amazon Fresh, they have all really DELIVERED!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad