carfreedays dry cleaning delivery service
our neighbor's dry cleaning delivery service
How does everyone feel about delivery?
In these new fangled modern times you can have just about anything delivered: Thai food, Indian food, groceries, pet food and even dry cleaning. The possibilities are endless.
In our crazy, pre-kid, free wheeling youth, we used to love delivery. Remember Kozmo.com? Tim and I used to have them deliver a movie and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s a little more often than I care to admit. But we were young and foolish then, we would never do that now (even if their coupon system was still broken and we could always get it free)
On one hand, one car/truck driving around and making deliveries is better than many cars driving around running errands. But the delivery vehicles are usually large and loud and they drive through otherwise quiet neighborhoods all day long.
This morning, on our walk to school, I saw a delivery driver taking a nap in the cab of his Amazon Fresh truck. I know those guys and gals work all night long, and he was probably real tired, but come on, couldn’t he pick a more discreet parking spot for his nap than the walking route to the school?
What do you think?
Is delivery just a convenient, modern way to get the stuff you need?
What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen delivered (maybe I don’t really want to know)
– Anne
Anne & Tim
Tim King
Anne
cfdgirl
Tim K
Car Free Days 
Not particularly crazy, but odd, there’s a local pizza joint here (in Metro DC) that delivers beer too. Don’t know how legal that is, but definitely handy at times. Does anyone else seen this sort of thing?
When I lived in Savannah, a fantastic pizza place opened up (Vinnie Van Gogo’s) and they used Worksman “short john” style bikes for all their deliveries. Savannah is nice and flat, and very fun to ride at night.
When I first got my Yuba Mundo I (somewhat) jokingly thought about offering to my close neighbors various delivery services. We have a bunch of groceries, beer stores, and restaurants within a mile, and I liked the idea of putting in lots of purposeful miles. The initial thought was beer (of course). I figured if someone asked me to pickup a six pack, the deal would be I deliver them a five pack. Who knows, maybe this could be my “retirement job” someday.
Max,
WA has really tight liquor laws…beer delivery would never fly here. Although that would be really nice. I bet your neighbors would totally go for the 5 pack deal. They’d probably pay you as well!
There is one pizza place in Seattle that delivers by bike: http://www.yelp.com/biz/snoose-junction-pizzeria-seattle Has anyone tried it?
How I miss Kozmo.com … my wife and I (independently, a sure sign of compatibility) were Kozmo fiends – movie, frozen pizza, and ice cream. Toothpaste and TP, one time. Yeah, we were/are lazy like that.
But in San Francisco, they delivered by bike, so we were guilty of sloth but of the low carbon footprint kind.
Maybe I need one of their spiffy orange bags:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Kozmo-com-Courier-Bag_W0QQitemZ310170790226QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_CSA_MWA_Backpacks?hash=item48379ea952
Hey Julian,
we were so disappointed when Kosmo tanked. I should have told you the bags were a sore subject….Shhhh…don’t mention the bags…Tim has lost out on a few on ebay and he’s still bummed about it : )
I get my groceries delivered but the delivery van delivers to a bunch of houses in our neighbourhood and is reasonably quiet and fuel efficient. Scheduled weekly delivery such as this really does take cars off the road and so in my book they are a good thing.
Unless they are delivering to three or four customers at a time, restaurant deliveries are not so efficient.
Doug,
I’ve never tried grocery delivery. I can see how it could be efficient if done right. I also wonder about packaging….is everything wrapped up and packaged?
Anne didn’t mention but we pretty much swore off Pizza delivery in the past year.
The main reason? My commute home each evening goes right by a Pizza Hut delivery-only place (plus about three other pizza places directly; too), and I’m assaulted by both the odors and the really bad driving.
I can’t believe it’s cost-effective to get in the car and drive a single pie a mile or less. And multiply that by the probably 15 or more pizza places within two miles of our house. Frankly, the idea of gas-powered, free pizza delivery really says something about how subsidized the U.S. auto habit really is.
Anyway, these days we either make our own or bike up to the local chain. If we had pizza delivery by bike, we could lift the ban. But for now, our pizza comes with a side of human power.
Our local pizza place has bicycle delivery. It’s also only about four blocks away, so it’s got to be really nasty out (or we’ve got to be really tired) before we call them.
We get an organic milk delivery from a local farm once a week that also brings eggs, cheese, and whatever dairy products we need. Once the baby comes, we’ll also have a diaper service coming to the door once a week. I’d love for the dairy truck to be less big and noisy, but for the trade-off of exceptionally fresh milk in reusable glass from a local farm… I’ll take it.
I think that delivery vehicles that actually reduce individual car trips are a good thing, but I agree that one-off restaurant deliveries don’t seem to be in that category.
I think I live in the same ‘hood as Inkandpen…but yeah, we get our milk delivered from the same local dairy weekly as well, and there are a couple low-carbon-foot-print pizza deliverers around (bike and little electric car), though we always walk. We also have our coffee beans delivered weekly by bike (couriercoffeeroasters.com).
I used to order pizza from a great place in Ann Arbor that would deliver milkshakes too. Those milkshakes were the bomb.
And I know there was a pizza delivery place in Grand Rapids, MI way back when I was in high school that would deliver beer with pizzas…and would never bother to check IDs once they’d already carried the case of cheapo beer up to the door. Not that *I* was ordering it, but I knew people who were, of course.
I’ve often wondered about this. In Germany we have chip-and-pin lockers in strategic places so you can order stuff to be sent there: a bit like PO boxes but with out the post office, and electronic, so the delivery driver can use whichever one os best for the package. Theoretically it’s eco-friendly, except that people then drive to the lockers…
Since we got the Bakfiets I’ve wondered about offering one to run a delivery service from one of the local farms which sells produce. They are isolated from the local villages and I recon it could increase their market a lot. I’d offer to do it for the food they sell. As an advantage they are on top of a hill so I’d climb empty and leave full, gravity assisted…
We currently get a veggie box delivered. It comes by van. If we lived in the city proper it would be by bike which is how I heard about them to begin with. A local blogger sited the Trike around town with the logo and I was hooked. I’m trying to get a meat CSA but I have to go to that one and it’s further than my bike parameters are, so I will be forced to commit to driving to pick up once a month.
I do like delivery esp for things that would require a visit to a box store or can be bought in bulk. Diapers from diapers.com. Equal exchange coffee every few months to bulk up. But I live on a small one street road that gets Fed Ex and UPS going past at a good clip all day so I see both points too.
Well in my neck of the woods any of the delivery services are on my way to work/home so it would be pretty silly to get pizza delivered when I can just pick it up on my way home (along with a 6 pack of beer). My boss gets his dry cleaning picked at work, as well as our aprons etc, which I see as a huge waste. We have a dry cleaners literally with-in walking distance. I’m not exactly volunteering to walk there myself, but it would be nice if the local businesses in my community considered bike deliveries.
Delivery in 2009 is no different than delivery in 1909. Sears and Montgomery Ward operated mail order catalog services that delivered everything from bikes, to cars, to homes.
Info on mail order homes: http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/