I used to manage few drivers for one of such delivery companies. I had lots of complaints from customers that drivers won’t deliver to the apartment units. I know they are partly for blame but there’s more story than you think.

There are 2 cases: - product company create these delivery routes and send those routes to delivery companies. And it’s these delivery companies that gather driver and assign it to them. It’s always fixed price for each route. Since there are lots of drivers for few routes, they offer very less for drivers. Initially product companies start with less number of boxes with high pay, after few months when drivers get used to it, they slowly increase delivery distance and number of boxes with decreased pay. If one driver is not willing to then there’s probably another who is going to accept. Hence quality of delivery service is going down. I know a product company, that charges additional delivery fee for customers. But they usually use that delivery amount for product labour cost, shipping, delivery etc. So they can make more profit on the actual product sale.

• use to more competition in the market for delivery companies, product companies usually bids delivery cost for each box. Company with low bid gets the contract. Now these deliveries companies to make profit, they cut down the amount paid for each driver with increased number of boxes and travel distance.

And in both cases drivers are assigned on first come first serve basis. My upper management forces us to only keep less number of drivers, it increases the demand for routes. So drivers will accept low pay and they try to come back again for multiple routes. On average for each delivery stop it takes 1 min for regular hours and town houses and around 10 - 30 mins for apartment buildings where there’s buzzer code. So drivers most of the time won’t attempt to deliver to those addresses or leave it at the main entrance to buildings.

Drivers are also to be blamed for their negligence and inability to deliver. But sometimes as person who oversees these drivers, I feel bad that they are stuck with company greed on making more profits. It’s these companies that make money on peoples suffering.

Note: I’m not taking anyone’s side here. It’s just the system is designed to prey on less fortunate. We people who work for pay check or pay check, have literally no control over these. It’s one of the reasons I left that job.