Online Shopping Needs Courier Services

Online shopping is becoming increasingly popular and convenient, especially in these COVID-19 times. It keeps us out of physical shops to a larger extent, allows us the convenience of browsing different suppliers to find the best price and saves us the trouble of getting ourselves ready, driving to the shops, and then battling for parking. It is an easy and trouble-free way of getting what we want from the comfort of our own homes. It is, in fact, so convenient that it is fast becoming a way of life and physical stores are now in competition with online stores.

Online Shopping Needs Courier Services

Courier services are vital for online shopping portals

Ordering is all well and good, but the next question is how to get the goods you ordered delivered to you. If you receive a tracking number from your supplier for your order, you can check online throughout the whole process of the goods being packed and moved onwards through a chain until they reach your destination. This whole process depends almost entirely upon the services of couriers along each step of the way. Whilst these may well be couriers who are employed by the supplier you purchased your goods from, they could also be independent couriers for part of the journey, all working together to speed your order to you.

Courier services are becoming more sophisticated

Courier services, themselves, have come a long way since they first began. It is now possible to provide messages to the courier services regarding delivery – for instance, where to leave the parcel if you are not at home at the time of delivery and no signature is required. Mobile phone communication keeps you and the courier in touch if, at the time of delivery, problems arise and you are unable to be at home and the parcel needs proof signature proof of delivery. Most courier services are extremely helpful and accommodating as far as possible, and may even delay your delivery until you are home if they have other deliveries in your general area and are able to work around your schedule.

Both large and small online companies rely on couriers

It would be fair to say that online shopping would certainly not be as popular and speedy if it were not for online couriers. Think, for instance, of Amazon which is a huge online shopping portal overseas, offering same-day or next-day service on purchases. Admittedly, the buying public numbers are much greater in, say, the United Kingdom or United States, and the courier system is geared to an extremely high efficiency rate. When I was in the UK, I often purchased through Amazon, and always received my parcels on time and in good condition. There was only one occasion when the parcel did not arrive at all, and it took some rather heated telephonic discussions before it was acknowledged that the parcel had, in fact, gone missing en-route as no-one was able to track its movement beyond a certain point, where it simply seemed to have evaporated into thin air. But, I stress, this was the ONLY time that this happened, and Amazon uses a very large number of independent couriers for their deliveries.

There is nothing to stop you from offering courier services

Couriers need not be large companies with teams of collection-and-delivery personnel on the ground nationally or internationally. There are small independent couriers who work on an as-needed basis for organisations which do not have a high sales turnover. Such couriers must obviously be trustworthy, punctual and committed to their purpose. They are perfect for small local companies in particular who need deliveries within a small geographical area.

Let’s give a shout-out to medical couriers!

You will also see many medical couriers on the move. These include scooter-drivers who deliver bloodwork and other samples from doctors’ surgeries to pathologists’ rooms and then return with the paperwork and results on such samples when they are ready for delivery. Scooters, in such instances, are faster than vehicles as they can move through traffic quickly. There are also medical couriers who carry living organs and large quantities of blood to hospitals for emergency use. These couriers are highly specialised in delivering such precious cargo within very tight deadlines and in sterile containers which are held in precisely regulated environmental conditions. Medical couriers carry their cargoes locally, nationally or internationally and by whatever means of transport is required. With this type of courier, time is absolutely essential in the pick-up and delivery of the cargo, and the courier service and its personnel need to be dedicated, organised and committed to their service collection and delivery timetables.

Shopping on a virtual platform? Wait for the courier to deliver …

Couriers are a vital part of our virtual shopping experience as it is these people who actually make our orders a reality. I sometimes think the courier delivery is the most exciting part of the process – seeing that box arrive and wondering if the contents are as exciting as you had hoped. For me, the biggest thrill is ordering a kitchen or household implement, unpacking it and actually seeing it for the first time in reality, and then playing with it constantly until the novelty wears off. I would guess this is the same thing most people go through, and it is all thanks to the courier!

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