Homesteading Depepndent on Delivered Products Ordered Online Often Problematic

Before moving to this homestead I knew Amazon and Wal-Mart shipping times would increase from the 2 - 3 days I was used to.   As long as I could get Wal-Mart and Amazon shipping, even with increased waits, all would be good.  Indeed, that is the way it has turned out to be -- except if there is the slightest problem with an order.  I use Instacart for groceries but there is no delivery this far out.  

Any problem involving returns, defective items etc means a large and disproportionate cost in TIME for me.  An item I needed with a week or so can take well over a month to be resolved.  Anything shipped via USPS or UPS needing to be returned is the worst because both involve driving miles (6 and 40 respectively) to drop off returns.  Between here and the main highway can often be a hazardous trip on the back roads ! Since I don't have a 'smart' phone I can't get digital return labels the driver can scan.  That leaves out pickups.

The time penalty is increased substantially when dealing with Amazon's 3rd-Party sellers.   Several times I gave up on returning relatively inexpensive items due to the hassle and just tossed the products aside or donated them.

Any product you totally, absolutely have to have on or before a certain date -- order well in advance.  Even then any defective item will still probably blow your timeline out by days, if not weeks.  Querying sellers on Amazon or asking questions on other sites take time but many times asking a few questions helps avoid mistakes in ordering products.  

But STILL -- being able to move so far out and do reasonably well depending on Capitalism to get stuff delivered is is a Godsend and allows many more of us to consider homesteading.  That part is totally awesome.  

I definitely feel your pain!  We're 12 miles from town (but a 20ish minute drive in good weather due to roads) and we've found that going to town pretty much blows the whole day for much work getting done on the place.  We attempt to plan things, but you know how that goes.  

Since we're basically starting from scratch and setting up a homestead from the beginning, this is a period of needing a lot of "stuff".  I'm hoping that will slow down once the basic infrastructure is built, but my husband is a city boy and LOVES to shop, so not a lot of hope there.

Still, I agree that being able to find and order so many of the unusual things we need for our place is wonderful!!

Delivery from any source is problematic.  I regularly deliver packages I receive to my neighbors, and I regularly receive packages from them.  Finding the correct address does not seem to be a priority for the various delivery services.  

In case you are wondering, I received a letter not addressed to me once.  I returned it to the post office. The next day it was in my mail box. So, I drove it to the post office again….and again it was in my mail box.   I called up someone who seemed to know everyone in the county, and he gave me directions,  I drove it to the correct house.

After that, I skipped returning the mail to the post office….or any other delivery service for that matter.

I do not understand nearly all the situations you are concerned about.
I order many products, books, material for my business items I use on my farm.
I get on average about 8 parcels a week.
I dont expect a 3 day delivery because of my location and I dont get up set with unfulfilled expectations.
I dont need to return things regularly, I have done it once in 20 years and it did not work out well, so I buy carefully.
Sherry, you may be dealing with a bad habit rather than having an issue of being out of town.
I am 20 minutes out of town now it has expanded in 20 years, but I make a list, I go straight in and load, pay and go back.
I use the internet and experience to look for goods or material to save daylight.

Most of my purchases are online.

What I find is that we go to town maybe every 45 days as it is a 60-mile trip.  

Dear hubby wants to buy a particular item though no one in this one-horse town has it.  I say why didn't you just buy that online?

I only buy from Sam's Club which uses FedEx or eBay whereas most sellers use the USPS.  UPS is just not reliable.

I don't do returns as that is too much trouble.  I usually just get a refund and the seller does not ask me to return the items.

I also find that buying online saves me a lot of money.  Prices in stores just keep doubling and I can do comparison shopping online and find the best prices.

I keep a list of items that I cannot buy online such as frozen vegetables and only buy those items when we go to town.

We are 12 Km (8M) out of town and 54 Km (45 M) from a supermarket sized town.  The courier companies insist on telling us we need to go the 108 Km round trip.  My line now is if you are not going to deliver it, send it back.  They can always arrange a compromise because it costs then a lot of money to return a parcel to the pick up point.  My other thing is to specify the article to be sent Australia Post or Startrack (USPS equivalent) If they decline, I cancel the order. The other thing that I have down to a fine art is requesting the item to be sent via Australia Post and if a courier delivers the parcel to the Post Office, I send the invoice to the courier company to pay the extra postage.  There are ways and means.  

I was buying stuff over last spring and summer and into the fall (arrived here 10 December) at
a furious pace.  Loads of food to stock the pantry and freezer and any type appliance or tool, guns,
whatever.

It slowed down when winter hit and now the budget is on a better footing.  But winter will point out
shortcomings etc that take money to fix...

I'm used to living in the country. Almost my entire life has been spent having to drive 20-30 minutes to get anywhere. When the ordering and and internet wave of things came along it was a blessing and a curse. I think it is definitely too eassy to shop in excess with being able to order with a fast click of a button. I'm definitely guilty of it. My closet and my bank account shows it. My shipping times on average are around 2-3 days through Amazon.  Anything coming FedEx seens a tad more.

8 - 10 days shipping here.  Any problem or return results in a three-week+ ordeal to get a product.  Stinks to high heaven.

Previously we lived 10 miles from the nearest small town so many things were unobtainable there. Some courier companies were fine coming along the council road (not very well maintained and full of potholes) and then up our farm track. Some weren't and preferred to leave our parcels "with your neighbour". I.e. 1 1/2 miles away. This mostly worked fairly well except for one time when I received an email on a Thursday evening telling me a parcel had been left at the neighbour's. I knew what it was so thought I'd pick it up on the Saturday when we were going into town anyway. Well, the neighbours were out so I thought I'd pick it up next time I was going out which was the following Tuesday. This time the neighbours were in but they'd sent the parcel back to the courier company as I hadn't collected it. They'd found it behind their barn on the Friday along with parcels for themselves but didn't know how long they'd been there. The courier couldn't understand why I hadn't just "popped" along for it until it was explained that it was a 3 mile round trip. In the end it was delivered to our house with bad grace!
Moving here, closer to "civilisation" we thought deliveries would be easier but so far, one has disappeared in transit (Suspicious, we thought as it contained alcohol - Christmas presents) and one company would deliver to the nearest Post Office free but would charge to deliver to us. We were amused as it went to the local Post Office which we can see from our property.

Hi Jill,

Welcome to Permies.