Lockdown + Online shopping = Where’s my bloody parcel? You left it WHERE?

You think COVID lockdowns are giving you grief? Well, hold on to your lipstick because the ‘beauty’ industry (i.e. makeup and skincare products) is set to lose $175bn in revenue as a result of the growing trend for working from home.

I bet that raised an eyebrow – and an unpencilled one at that. Already by June this year, during the first spike, consumer spending on hormonal warpaint and facial polyfilla was estimated to have fallen by a fifth. So a second lockdown doesn’t fare well for an industry that depends almost entirely upon social interaction.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind. Maybe we’ll get to feel some sun on our skins.

It is said that 90% of women wear little or no makeup if they are not planning to meet anyone outside the home, which I find incredible. That is, I find it incredible that the other 10% bother at all. Just like teleworkers who slob around in pyjamas all day but throw on a shirt for Team calls, there really doesn’t seem much point. Unless… they imagine they might be seen by someone, unexpectedly, at some undetermined point during the day.

Who could this mysterious uninvited guest be? Your kids’ schoolteacher? A Jehova’s Witness? A neighbour? The vicar? Colonel Mustard in the study with a CellMate?

A clue comes from the CEO of Fraîcheur Ice Globes, Ingrida Cerniauskaite: “There is hope in the online market. As our customers move towards shopping online, so should our businesses.”

OK, that sounds a little odd at first: I thought consumers working from home use less makeup because they’re working from home, not because they can’t get to the shops. Chemists stay open during lockdowns, remember. So what I think she’s implying is that since we’re all buying more useless things from ecommerce sites to alleviate the grim mood, make-up may as well be one of those things.

And thus I have identified our potential mystery visitor at the front door: the delivery courier.

Oh dear, how sad, nev… Hang on, a delivery courier? Christ almighty you must be joking.

One of my journalist colleagues at The Register, Matthew Hughes, just this week recounted an all-too-familiar tale of delivery courier fail.

“Bizarre. I’m expecting a review phone to arrive today. The courier didn’t ring the doorbell. I caught him slipping a ’sorry we missed you’ note through the door. I stepped out. We made eye-contact. He saw me and drove off anyway.

“I wish I had that level of commitment to not actually doing my job. Still, very strange.”

No doubt you have plenty of your own comic-horror stories about delivery couriers – packages left in the rubbish bin ‘for safety’ (on your neighbourhood’s fortnightly refuse collection day) or tossed over your fence to land in your goldfish pond, that kind of thing. But I feel quite certain you have experienced exactly the same as Matthew: a courier shoves a ‘sorry we missed you’ note through your letterbox without first knocking or ringing the bell to find out whether you are actually in, and then tiptoes off on the sly.

Last year an Amazon courier not only shied away from ringing my doorbell but actually sent me a photo he’d taken of my package where he’d left it, sitting on the grass in front of my house. Very thoughtful, you might think, except there isn’t any grass in front of my house, nor indeed in front of any other houses on my street.

If you plan on buying a tub of foundation and a palette knife just so you can look nice when greeting delivery couriers at your front door, you may as well think again. Not only will they not see much of your face under your facemask, they probably won’t see you at all since they’re too shy to even make you aware of their presence on the doorstep before shoving that note through the door and fucking off with your package still in the van.

Why do they do this? Do they get paid extra for a return visit? It seems unlikely.

At last I can see why the idea of online retailers delivering packages by drone is catching on. A drone is no more dextrous than a human courier when it comes to ringing doorbells but you get to trace the drone on a mapping app in real time right up to your doormat. And when it reaches your address, it rests the package on your mat and alerts your smartphone.

Mind you, drones may soon be able to ring that bell. In fact, I should be careful what I say because boffins at Imperial College London already invented a miniature drone designed to fly up close and shoot darts into tree trunks. One more sarcastic jibe at delivery couriers and I could end up like Paul Atreides facing the Hunter-Seeker.

Come to think of it, couriers stopped ringing doorbells from around March onwards, opting for the COVID-safer alternative of ringing your mobile phone to alert you to their arrival at your doorstep. The problem I’ve been having is that they’re always standing on someone else’s doorstep. This can make for surreal phone conversations.

Bzzzz bzzzz. Hello, it’s your courier, I have your delivery. I’m right outside.

“Great, I’ll be right out!” [I open the front door; nobody is there] “Well, here I am. Where are you?”

I’m standing right in front of your door.

“So am I.” [I step onto the pavement; I look up and down the street] “You’re not here.”

I’m now tapping on your window. Someone’s inside.

“I was inside a minute ago.” [Feeling a bit creeped out now; looking back towards the house] “And now I’m outside. I’m the only one here.”

OK I’ll ring you back.

…

Bzzzz bzzzz Hello again, it’s your courier. I’ve just handed you your package.

“What? No. No you haven’t. Where are you? At the door?” [I step outside again]

I’ve just rung your doorbell and given it to you! Well, to someone.

“Really? What did I look like?”

I handed it to a woman. Er, wearing white.

“I’m not a woman.” [I look down to check] “I’m wearing blue.”

Look… guhhh… Oh all right I’ll go and ask for it back again.

[A thought crosses my mind; I check the courier tracker on my smartphone; it has a delivery location map; my courier is half a mile away]

“When you see her, could you ask what street she’s on? Then could you both read aloud the address on the delivery label?”

[Distant voices:] Mmblmblmblmbl… Oh. Oh right. [Clearer, speaking to me:] I’m on my way.

…

Bzzzz bzzzz Hello it’s the courier…

“Yes, I know. You’re in front of my house. So am I. You are looking at me.”

[Still talking into his phone as he hands me the package:] I had trouble finding your house number. [His eyes flick involuntarily towards the 12in-high numbers directly in front of my house, then back at me in confusion.]

“That’ll be because you were on another street with a different name half a mile away. My house isn’t over there, it’s here.”

Have you moved? It’s a hard house to find.

What? No, it’s a house, it doesn’t roam about. It’s here… [I search for the right words]… practically all the time.”

But his accusation of clandestine domestic building absenteeism remains unchallenged and my explanation hangs in the air unheard as the courier is already driving off to cock up the next delivery on his list.

Now I’ve just read that lockdown Christmas will mean a further 54% boom in home deliveries. By Black Friday, the roads will be packed with baffled couriers armed with their 1956 Michelin Road Maps and shyly tapping on windows of the wrong houses, trying to offload their makeup deliveries to random women wearing white who think it’s normal to accept parcels for people they don’t know living at an address that isn’t theirs.

Me, from now on I’m sticking with click-and-collect. At least I’ll get some sun.

ALISTAIR DABBS is a freelance technology tart, juggling tech journalism, training and digital publishing. He is aware that the beauty industry is under stress at this time and wishes to sympathise with those who have lost jobs. He also recognises the noble profession of delivery couriersman and wonders however we’d get by without him. (Well, I’d use the post.) More like this every Friday at Something for the Weekend, Sir?