Pretty much all the delivery services are all about running the workers ragged so they can extract the maximum value for executive bonuses.
Most all the carriers made deals with the devil to Amazon and eBay that essentially mean they are charging the big giants less than it usually costs to deliver and trying to make it up by hiking rates on the small businesses and running their workers ragged to the point of breaking.
The average delivery person is being worked way too hard, way too long and under way too much pressure.
Anything that delays the deliveries is something that counts against their metrics so yep all the shortcuts are pushed from the top down.
Drivers hate the world, hate their bosses, hate the company, hate most of the delivery stops so they are happy to fudge it to not have to deal with "special needs" when it comes to delivery, since that slows their metrics down and they get blamed for it.
Local distribution hubs have the wink and nod to falsify delivery attempts so as to improve metrics.
CEOs and Executives are happy because their bonuses grow bigger as "packages delivered on time" metrics improve on paper.
In the end the folks getting totally screwed are the small business and sellers that essentially have to shoulder the cost of all the above and eat crap from everyone, from the "customers" to their suppliers, to shipping companies, to the payment processors, to the "marketplaces" and such. At every single step the small business owner gets screwed over from time to time and has to figure out how to roll all that screwing over into price hikes or quality / specification cuts, enough to stay in business.
Now you may ask, well why don't they just the deliveries exactly as they are supposed to.. well here is how it goes:
Let's say "Buyer" works all day, lives in a safe neighbourhood.
Now what happens if they order something from a vendor and the vendor sends it a service that has to be signed for by the "buyer", and only the "buyer" and they have to see the "buyer's" government ID, at the billing address only, and note the information down for delivery and the shipper actually does it?
First your shipping charges would have to cover the cost of probably several attempts to deliver it, assuming the "buyer" is not home all day. Then it has to cover sitting it in a shipping hub waiting for the "buyer" to come show ID during business hours to get the package.
Then it has to cover sending it back to the shipper because the "buyer" didn't get around to picking it up after a week, and got all pissy about having to go get it after 3 delivery attempts and told everyone to go F themselves, because the whole world should revolve around their "unique" schedule of only being home at a random time late at night.
And of course, the "buyer" will then be demanding the seller cover all that cost for free because whatever and who cares how much the seller is out for.
Probably threaten them with credit card fraud as well since these days it seems "buyers" think that "protections" are a license to lie / cheat / steal, even though it was the "buyer's" fault it couldn't get delivered, well tough luck they are going to do a chargeback because they don't want to have to be out the shipping costs.
Oh and "Shipping is supposed to be free right?"
(In case you think that's made up, it's something I deal with often in my line of work).
So the business and the carriers know the above scenario as it has played out numerous times and gets really old and you all learn to hate the world and "buyers". So you have an unspoken, unchallenged understanding, that the delivery drivers just fudge it, it's kind of the only way to go, the least horrible of horrible situations.
But don't worry as folks blather on about "I'll just order from Amazon next time", Dr. Evil laughs from his new volcano lair as he has the wage slaves beaten harder and looks forward to the day all the small guys have been driven out of business and he can charge anything he wants and decide if products will be sold or not because everybody else is out of business. Oh that gun stuff... sorry "private company" can do what I like, so you are SOL
All that to say, deliveries are not going to get any better, if anything expect them to get WAY worse, especially the residential package deliveries which no carrier really likes.
If you want better deliveries as a business, make the drivers look forward to delivering to you.
At our company, our deliveries and pickups improved dramatically once word got around to all the drivers that we had a free open snack bar, cold bottled water, coffee and bathrooms that they could use anytime they stopped by. Totally worth it.
Of course we are still at the mercy of all the hubs and all the other B.S. and things get delayed and customers get mad, but at least the first and last bit of the journey are a lot more reliable.
) ATACRs. The cameras in there are good enough to keep the employees and FedEx delivery people accountable.
