I still can’t stop myself from comparing everything with Japan and Germany.
My brother-in-law sometimes reads this blog, and once he said: ‘Sister, you like Japan so much, why did you move to Germany?’ (I’m speechless)
Just give me more time, I’m slowly adapting to Germany! But another thing I can’t help but praise Japan is: the delivery service is first-class!
Have you tried the Japanese Delivery Service?
No matter which delivery company in Japan, the service is basically very good and polite. Are you not at home? They’ll just leave a warm note for you, then you just call or go online to change the delivery time. In short, the goods are usually delivered to your door in good condition.
What about in Germany? So far, I’ve tried the services of Amazon, DHL, DPD and GLS. The delivery guy will also leave a note if you’re not home, but not 100%. We have encountered the following situations:
Pattern 1 – Delivered to a Neighbour (but you don’t know which neighbour)
I was not at home, the delivery guy left a note saying the parcel was delivered to a neighbour. Um? ! Neighbour? Which neighbour? In the end, we had to call Amazon customer service to ask for clarification, only to find out that the package was delivered to the neighbour on the first floor. We don’t know German, so it is very strange to knock on the neighbor’s door suddenly.
Pattern 2 – Delivered to a Neighbour (even you were at home)
Similar situation as pattern 1, even when you were at home! No door bell had been rang, and all of a sudden, the package is sent to the neighbour on the first floor. I can assume the delivery guy didn’t want to climb some floors, but also didn’t want to just leave the parcel at the front door, since it’d be his responsibility if anything happened. I often see this issue being raised in Facebook groups – those who live on the first floor become a delivery pick-up point, poor thing!
Pattern 3 – Delivered to Pickup Point but NO Slip
I didn’t see a note in the mailbox, but I received an email saying that the parcel had been delivered to the pick-up point. The story of looking for Emma’s mattress last time is this way of playing. Later, we estimated that because the mailbox was inside the building, and the delivery man did not have a key, he could not go to the mailbox at all, so sometimes we saw delivery notes taped to the doorbell outside the building with adhesive tape. If there is no note, just show the delivery email when you get to the pick-up point, or sometimes say the name and address.
Pattern 4 – Delivered……to the 1st Floor
I was at home, the delivery guy rang the doorbell, and I opened the door for him, but he did not deliver it to my door. We have encountered this situation many times! When I experienced it for the first time, ‘Why hasn’t the delivery guy come for so long? It’s only 5 storeys.’ You guessed it! He didn’t want to climb up at all! The parcel was left on the stairs on the first floor.
Since then, we don’t expect the parcel to be delivered to our doorstep. In Germany, there is no considerate delivery service that puts customers first, but if you think about it carefully, everyone is shopping online during the epidemic, so the workload of the delivery staff should be very heavy, right? Now that he has brought the parcel all the way long till here, it is quite strenuous for him to climb 5 storeys, isn’t it? So, let us treat it as exercise, just go to fetch our own parcel!
