The Psychological thing about Online Order Deliveries

This post got featured in the Spicy Saturday Picks on Blogadda.

“How can you be sitting so calm?” my cousin asked.

I paused the TV episode on my laptop and looked up at him questioningly.

“When I have to wait for my order to be delivered, I am so troubled!”

I laughed.

“Yeah, it’s like the moon grows a little bigger on those days,” he said excitedly.

I couldn’t decipher what that could mean, but it surely was something to be laughed of.

I should have told him something on the lines of “When you grow up, things like these wouldn’t matter that much to you”, because that would probably have been the ideal elder-brotherly thing to say.

But I ended up saying what was actually in my thought: “It’s been a storm inside my head since that order was placed 10 days ago!”

Yeah, I am not calm.

Tell me, does this happen with you too?

The sound of every motorcycle stopping outside your home urges you to check if it is the delivery guy. You look out to the road time and again, hoping, (miraculously) for the delivery guy to appear with your order right then. You refresh the ‘Track my order’ page again and again, even though you realise that there can be no updates there after ‘Order is Out for delivery’. Every ring of the doorbell raises hopes for a few moments, to be ultimately crushed by either a neighbour or maid or kid.

I remember waiting for my new phone to be delivered almost 4 years ago. I sat in the balcony on the expected day of delivery the entire day. The courier guy didn’t turn up and in the evening on enquiring at their office we got to know that the package had arrived but would be delivered the next day. My grandfather and I went to the office to get the package right then because I had a flight to catch in a couple of hours (after its thankful delay and rescheduling).

A few months later, when I was to receive the Steve Jobs biography from my father on my birthday. The order didn’t arrive for two weeks after that. It was a different story that at the end of two weeks, I received the book as a complimentary gift from the online store with a ‘Sorry’ card. Talk about playing with the psychology of the consumer.

Then there was this surprising instance when I placed a pre-order for the last Harry Potter film DVD and it arrived on the very afternoon of its release. No time for any psychological thoughts to begin.

Online shopping has actually changed our thought process about shopping completely. There was a time when we used to go out to shops, check out the desired products, compare prices and buy. Now we do the same thing on the computer. The same process on a different platform. And even when some book or electronic item or anything else is available at the nearby store or mall, we prefer checking the prices on Flipkart or Amazon and in most cases end up buying it online.

I sometimes wonder- has the online takeover actually made our lives easier or has it led to increase in stress levels? Both probably. Two sides of the coin. One comes with the other.

I understand not everyone would have similar thoughts or would be waiting that eagerly for their order, but then, that’s being diplomatic and trying-to-please-all. Come on, who doesn’t want Santa Clause to bring gifts?

So my order has been apparently sitting at ‘the hub nearest to you’ merely a couple of kilometres from my residence since yesterday mid-day but isn’t getting delivered. The scheduled delivery is to happen ‘latest by tomorrow’ and so until then, I can’t be complaining. But then, I just can’t ignore an untimely doorbell ringing or a missed call from an unknown number, can I? Haha…

I guess now I can continue with the latest season of House of Cards and expect Frank Underwood’s political pragmatism to occupy the greater part of my mind and help me look calm until my order gets delivered.

Please, please, please, stop torturing me. Let it get delivered ASAP!

On a related note, have you seen this amazing short video on the lives of delivery men made recently by Google?