9.00pm? Surely it will come a lot sooner. I've been looking at the delivery update pages at intervals all morning. It was this at 7.25am:
Then at 8.57am it was this:
Then at 11.04am the position was updated to this:
Aha! But no more news since then. Grrr!
Honestly, this delivery-tracking business winds you up. I want to get my new Fitbit unpacked, charged up, set up, and doing its stuff on my wrist while I step forth on my Fitness Project. I've already thought of things I can do this afternoon that involve a local walk instead of lazily taking the car. I want, for example, to pop into to the village supermarket for some extra fruit. I also want to visit the doctors' surgery to enquire why Boots weren't given authority to dispense to me all the items I requested online. But I can't go out now until the delivery man calls.
Ho hum.
It's the same every time I order something that will have to be signed for. Life goes into Suspense Mode while you wait...and wait...and wait...
This is what Internet Shopping does to you.
But on the other hand, I can't deny the plus points:
- I was easily able to fully research my buying options from Internet reviews. I could mull it all over at my own pace.
- I was easily able to find a keen deal online.
- I was easily able to pay online, and choose between several delivery options. (Although I stuck with the 'next day' default option)
- I have had confirmatory emails, full of information, and with links so that I could track delivery progress.
- I may still be waiting, but I know for certain that the goods are in Sussex and will reach me by 9.00pm. 'Next day delivery' was a big part of the deal.
That's all a huge advance on how things used to be.
Once upon a time you set aside a Saturday morning to go into town and see what was available in the very few specialist shops that might stock what you had in mind. You might, or might not, have seen a test report in a magazine, but if not you were buying largely on some blind hunch that the thing would perform well and be nice to use. And following some axiom that the more you paid, the better the quality. Or that only expensive things stood up to wear and tear and lasted. Or that anything made by manufacturer X was superior.
Yes, you could handle the goods at the shop: and you used those moments to assess whether the thing was well-made and had the right features. If you had no previous acquaintance with the object in question, then you had to rely on what the shop assistant said. He'd be hovering there, swearing blind that this was the best you could get, and on special offer, and all that stuff. It was always hard to leave a shop like that without having fallen victim to a hard sell. And no fourteen days to send it back if not fully satisfied.
Oh! A red Parcel Force van has arrived. Something for me? No...
4.05pm
My doorbell rings! A man with a very new white van hands me a parcel that's obviously from Amazon. Nothing to sign. I write this as I'm about to open it. Too late for making enquiries today at the doctors' surgery - I'll do that tomorrow now. But I'll surely be walking to the supermarket and back later today! It stays open till 9.00pm.
