DHL Wants to Ship Stuff to Your Car

July 27, 2024 by
DHL Wants to Ship Stuff to Your Car

One of the downsides of shopping online is that it’s never a hundred percent bet just when the product will ship.

This isn’t always a problem if you live in the country, or can arrange to have someone pick up stuff for you, but sometimes you don’t want your package left somewhere easily stolen while you’re at work.

A new arrangement between DHL and Daimler AG, meanwhile, may fix that by offering a new point of delivery: your car.

The program, known as “Smart Ready to Drop”, shoppers will be able to have packages delivered to vehicles parked around Stuttgart, where the testing is set to happen.

Couriers will get a special one-time-use access code to shoppers’ cars, and when a delivery window expires, then so too will the access code. Those wanting to return items need only leave them in the car, for later pickup and refund to follow.

Stuttgart is just first to get access to this service; Cologne and Berlin are set to follow, with four other as-yet-unnamed German cities to follow.

It’s also not the only service planned, according to word from Smart Ready to Drop head Annette Winkler, who reported that “…many other services designed to ease urban life” were on tap.

While this seems fairly limited, it’s still early-stage stuff, and represents an exciting new prospect. If DHL makes this service last, it becomes possible to license it to Amazon or the like, allowing users to shop from a mobile device, make payments from said device, and then have the item delivered to a car.

This is a great idea for those who would be at work when an item was to be delivered, and don’t have to have it delivered to some unsecured location because they were at work when it would have arrived.

Delivery to the car makes it fairly secure, and users can readily slip out of the office for a moment to bring a fragile electronic item or the like indoors for extra protection after it arrives.

If this service goes as far as it might, it might be a welcome addition to mobile shoppers’ everyday operations. It will be especially welcome if it can expand outward to more than just Daimler AG smart cars and open up new possibilities for every driver.

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