Not home delivery: Usually delivered to nearby gas station (or kiosk, grocery store, whatever) and/or post-box you can open with code. Where this is the norm it is usually a few minutes walking distance. But you can often pick where you want it, if you want it close to your work instead or wherever.

How is it possible that you do not know whether a package will come to your house or (by your example) a nearby gas station kiosk?

Do you share an address with the nearby gas station kiosk?

When you send a package the only information provided is often the shipping address. If the service uses home-delivery that means that someone comes knocking on my door. If they don't provide home-delivery it will delivered to the nearest pickup-point and I'll get a note in my mailbox saying that there is a package to pick up (in reality I already know this because of tracking information via the web, app and/or sms+email if that was provided when the package was sent).

If the web site I'm ordering from provides it I can pick different options and depending on option I can pick which pickup point I prefer.

But what if they don't? What if I'm ordering something from a different country? What if the shipping provider they offer in that country don't operate in my country?

Even more common, it isn't even listed what provider they use for sending. They might probably use different providers depending on package size. If it is small it is going in my mailbox, if it is really big it can be too big even for my local gas station. So after ordering I get a tracking number and then I know which provider is gonna deliver it. And then I know if I have to WFH just to receive that package.

Last week I got a package that I had ordered from a large companies EU site. No idea even what country the package was going to be sent from. And I had no idea how it was gonna be delivered - free shipping though. A week after ordering I got an text message saying that amazon would send the package (f*ck, bad sign) and that it would arrive between 19 and 22 the very same day (someone even paid extra for evening delivery huh?). Well, I wasn't home that day so... Lucky for me they were overbooked and couldn't get to my place and by 23 they sent a message saying that they postponed it to the next day (at which point I happened to be home).

Or, what if they could just have dropped it off at the local pickup-point and I'd have it as soon as I got home? Not an option.

You live in the US, right? If USPS, UPS, or Fedex is given a delivery address, that’s where they deliver the package. It’s that simple. There is no complicating factor whatsoever. They do not wander off to the local gas station and drop your package off there. That is a fantasy.

Different websites do not dictate the behavior of the shipping carrier, that’s also a fantasy. Once the seller hands the package to the shipping company, it is literally out of their hands.

In your story, a package on the way to your residence got delayed. This happens sometimes and has zero effect on the shipping address. There was no point in which you had to worry that maybe it would show up at a gas station.

Again, how is it possible that you do not know _WHERE_ your package is being sent to?

No, I do not live in the US.

> "There was no point in which you had to worry that maybe it would show up at a gas station."

Why on earth would I be worried about that? That is what I wanted! So much easier and quicker. What I worry about is what would happen if I wasn't home during home-delivery.

I actually have a fedex package on its way from the US to me right now. Thankfully fedex are nowadays sane enough to allow me to redirect it to a gas station pickup point rather than trying to deliver it to me at home.

> From a lot of (bad) places you don't know at the time of order whether it is going to be home delivery or not

What do you mean by that? I am not discussing what to do with expensive packages or the merits of dropoff locations. I literally just asked what you mean when you say you do not know if a package that’s shipped to your home will be delivered to your home.

Also, what did you mean by this if you don’t live in the US?

> The whole concept that we (well, the US at least) have porch pirates is just wild. Why?

First of all it was answered by gorbypark, but I also answered it many times. You don't seem to keen on answering questions though.

To make it real clear: You go to a website, put something in your cart. Enter your home address as shipping address. Add payment and complete the order.

Now the package might end up at a gas station, or it might be home-delivery. And there is no way to know that before you get your tracking information, at which point you can't even cancel the order without receiving it first.

> Also, what did you mean by this if you don’t live in the US?

Because youtube is full of videos of porch pirates in the US, and it is not anything I've really heard of where I live. But yes, that sentence was badly written. Did not mean we as in my country.

Have you considered advocating for a more functional mail system where you live rather than trying to convince people in other countries that the very concept of mail delivery is universally flawed?

The only problem we have is with home delivery and that is mostly been with US providers anyway. And it is explained partly because the US providers are mostly used by businesses, where "home" delivery actually make sense.