Friday, September 21, 2018
8A – Solving The Problem
I absolutely hate when I have been looking forward to receiving a package for days, sometimes even weeks, and the delivery day finally comes, but I miss the package because I had another obligation keeping me from staying home all day waiting for it. Most delivery companies now offer tracking tools but they usually very vague. For example, it will often say some like "Your package got loaded onto the truck at 7:31am and should arrive before 8pm", so what are you supposed to do? Wait around and do nothing for 12 hours? No, I feel like there is a better way. I think we need to upgrade the tracking system. If people were given a smaller and more accurate time frame that their package is expected to be delivered, they could plan their day around being home for it. For example, my father works 7 minutes away from his house, so if he was able to be alerted when his package was close being delivered, he could take a break and go home to sign for it and go right back to work. I would like to create an app that has a much better tracking system specifically designed for delivery companies to offer their customers. Some of the things this app would include are a real time GPS tracker, push alerts, and an option to have your package sent to a different address.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hey Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI think an app to solve this problem is a great idea! I use an app called Slice to track my packages and it suffers the same pitfalls that you mentioned. It says, “Will arrive before 8 p.m.” and that’s just not accurate enough. I think push notifications alerting you as to when the package is a certain time away would be helpful. One thing that I think would be interesting to explore is a way to digitally sign off on your package when you’re not home. Say it gets to your house and you get a notification- you could be able to sign on your phone screen and receive the package remotely. I think that would be a far more efficient technology and I would be more willing to pay money for that functionality. I also think delivery companies (UPS, Amazon, FedEx) would be interested in purchasing or licensing the technology from you if you could patent it. That’s how you make the big bucks $$$.
Hello Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI believe this app would be so beneficial to so many people. I have also been given a large time frame of when a packaged was projected to be delivered. It is very frustrating especially when I just have to hope it gets delivered by a certain time. If people could more accurately track mail and packages it would help them plan out their day and also not cause any trouble for the delivering person.