It is supposed to make life easier and save you time, but according to a survey by Which? buying goods online or by phone can mean waiting in for the postman for hours on end. In fact, when the magazine totted up the time spent waiting for deliveries or for tradesmen to arrive, it found we each spend an average of three days a year twiddling our thumbs - a total of 20m working days in the past year.
The Which? survey showed that customers expecting to take delivery of products from Dell waited longest - an average of six hours - followed by Argos customers, who were forced to wait for an average of over four and a half hours. Workmen were also prone to leaving consumers hanging around. According to which the worst culprits were from gas and delivery suppliers who, on average, kept people waiting for around four-and-a-half hours.
One of the main problems was companies' reluctance to give specific times for deliveries and calls. Over half the stores in the survey used five hour delivery slots and only 6% were able to give their customers an exact delivery time. With some companies operating 9am-1pm and 1pm-5pm slots, it is not unusual to find you need a whole day off work to be sure you are home when your goods arrive.
But not all companies are getting it wrong, according to Which? Supermarkets were praised for giving consumers just a two-hour window for deliveries and managing to get 80% of their orders out on time, and top of the shops was Waitrose, which offers waiting slots of just one hour. The supermarkets also tend to offer deliveries out of office hours - not an option with many other retailers. Despite the fact that many homes tend to be empty between 8am and 5pm during the week, these were the favoured hours for most delivery services. So if the supermarkets can get it right, why can't everyone else?
