The Yodel Game

It's that time of year again when we order a lot of things online for Christmas. Dealing with most couriers in the North East of Scotland is a nightmare, the main distribution hubs for the big couriers are located in Aberdeen and Inverness, with a mish-mash of local and/or independent couriers filling the gaps further afield. This generally means that if you are quoted a delivery date of 1st December by the mainstream courier, that date actually reflects when it reaches their final hub, BEFORE it's passed on to the indie couriers. This can add a day or two onto the expected delivery date, what I call "The Highland Rule". The exception to this rule is Parcel Force, who use the Royal Mail network and so can meet the delivery date.

This time of year is also the most common time to play "The Yodel Game".

The Yodel game, for the small minority who have not played is quite a simple one to learn, but a very hard one to win.

Here's how to play:

1. Place an order for home delivery with Amazon, Argos, Littlewoods or one of the many companies that use them
2. Wait at home on delivery date (plus next working day after for the "Highland Rule")
3. Discover that you have missed your delivery by one of the following:
-Get card stealthily put through door without a knock or a ring
-Tracking website informs you that you have been carded, even though you don't have a card
-Tracking website informs you that you have already signed for the item

4. Call company you ordered from or call Yodel and receive same incorrect information as on tracking website and be told it will be redelivered
5. Repeat steps 2 - 4 for up to 7 days
6. Receive Parcel (Probably, otherwise start again at step 3)

Yodel is a special kind of courier (as seen on Watchdog), they claim to be the UK's biggest by quite some margin and they handle far too many of the UK's deliveries (purely on a cost basis, no doubt) but in reality Yodel is a extremely loose network of independent drivers, each with their own habits and hours of operation. This is Yodel's @HOME brand.

The @HOME Yodel model is a fairly simple one (and not one that is exclusive to them either). Yodel employs independents to deliver their parcels, with a commission of 40-70p per signed for delivery. Each day, the big Yodel van will turn up at the home of an independent and drop off the parcels to be delivered that day. This delivery can occur any time during the working day, so your local delivery bod may not recieve parcels until late afternoon. They are then responsible for delivery of said parcels to their recipients.

And here's where the system really starts to fail...

Say Mrs Smith from ten minutes down the road is your local Yodel delivery person, trying to make a bit of extra cash to suppliment the family income. Now Mrs Smith has recieved some rather large parcels for you, but they won't fit in her little Corsa, she'll have to wait until her Son is free at the weekend so she can get him to drop it off in his van. Does she come and tell you this? Does Yodel phone you to advise? No, of course not. You're just left to wonder if you will recieve your parcel.

What about Billy down at Number 42? He likes a night out with his mates, the Yodel stuff was dropped off at 4.30pm and he was just about to head down to the pub. Will he tell his mates to wait until he does his deliveries? I doubt it. Will he feel like delivering tomorrow when he has a brutal hangover? Don't count on it. Maybe he'll just scribble some signatures down so he gets his commission and maybe he'll drop them off when he feels more up to it. Again, does anyone pass on a revised delivery date? Does anyone care?

Now I mentioned that the Yodel game is a hard one to win, suggesting that there are ways to win. Based on the disaster that was last years Christmas delivery season, I can make the following "strategic suggestions":

1. Put a sign on your door instructing couriers to Knock/Ring the Bell and if no answer then please leave in such and such a place. Sign it and put your name underneath (like a letter). This counts as a delivery signature/instruction and most couriers will respect this. Of course, if your delivery person is Mrs Smith or Billy, then this won't work, but for the delivery person who doesn't intend on hanging about it works pretty well - just be careful where you have them leave it and check this place regularly!


2. I work in Aberdeen, so wherever possible I get parcels delivered to my office. This means that I'm close to a main distribution hub and my parcel will be delivered by the original courier rather than play pass the parcel with Indies.


3. Choose delivery options that aren't Yodel/Independent friendly - many websites have delivery options that Yodel can't do such as a one hour window (DPD) or by 1pm (Royal Mail). This one can be a bit of a pain because unless the website lists which courier provides which service, you can only assume that it won't be Yodel.

The reason these big companies choose Yodel is because they are cheap - and very much for a reason, but we need to take some responsibility too. The next time you tick "Free Delivery" on Amazon, think about whether or not you want to play The Yodel Game.