Receiving parcels no-one at home

[Mijin]

Embarrassingly noob question for someone who has lived in Shanghai for years, but my circumstances have changed recently.

In the past I received parcels at my workplace, which was very convenient. But now, the only address I have is my apartment, and no-one is home most of the time. A couple of times the kuaidi guy has left parcels outside my front door and it's pot luck whether it will still be there when I get home ?

 

Is there a way to send deliveries to, say, a nearby family mart?

Also my compound has a deposit box wall thing, but how do I make sure an order on taobao, say, goes there?

 

Thanks

[suMMit]

At my place , nowadays they normally stick it in the box by default, unless its something big. Occasionally they call me, i say 我不在家, they say blahblahblah好吗? i say 好 , and it ends up in the box. You get an sms when its put in the box. I should really learn what the blahblah words are for that box, hopefully someone here posts it.

[889]

Yes, Taobao/Tmall and I believe JD.com give you the option of having packages delivered to nearby pick-up points. You need to set this up when placing the order: look for a pick-up option on the delivery address page.

 

Usually it's a shop but sometimes it's one of those box arrays. In either case you get an SMS with a code you need to retrieve your package.

 

No charge so long as you pick the package up within four days or so.

[mungouk]

21 hours ago, Mijin said:

Also my compound has a deposit box wall thing

 

Good question... mine also has one of those things but I've no idea what they're called, or how I would get a delivery to go there.  

 

Any clues?

 

Similarly, my condo appears to have mailboxes on the ground floor (L1) of each building, but after 6 months of pestering my real estate agent I never managed to get a key for mine. Does anyone actually send important things like bills through the snail-mail in China any more?  I was told my water bill will get taped to my front door by the building management, but I didn't see one yet.

[889]

“ . . . but I've no idea what they're called."

 

自提柜

 

"Does anyone actually send important things like bills through the snail-mail in China any more?"

 

If someone's sent you a package through China Post, you'll probably get a notice in your mail box to come pick it up.

[ChTTay]

The kuaidi boxes in apartment complexes are useful! My new place doesn’t have any. 

 

My old place had lots and kuaidi guys used them a lot. Essentially if it was day time many would just shove it in there and not even bother calling/knocking. 

 

If you've got one in your apartment and guys keep ringing, just learn how to say put it in them and tell them that. 

 

Ive never used pick up points! Lots of little shops end up providing that service though for a fee of about ¥1. 

[889]

As I said, at least on Taobao/Tmall there's no charge for using the pick-up shops. Unless you don't pick your stuff up within something like four days, in which case there is a daily charge of I believe ¥1/package.

[laomao]

I've had taobao orders delivered to Family Mart - just select the location when you're placing your order, sometimes the nearest shop isn't available (I guess because of the size of the package?).

 

My compound doesn't have the deposit boxes (菜鸟) but we do have a bao'an sitting at the front, so kuaidi drivers will leave parcels outside his bao'an hut, which is convenient but neither safe nor particularly dry...

[abcdefg]

2 hours ago, laomao said:

My compound doesn't have the deposit boxes (菜鸟) but we do have a bao'an sitting at the front, so kuaidi drivers will leave parcels outside his bao'an hut, which is convenient but neither safe nor particularly dry...

 

Same for me. It always amazes me when I actually get something that I ordered. Seems like a minor miracle. 

[889]

" . . . sometimes the nearest shop isn't available."

 

Yes, there is something very idiosyncratic about the way you are shown available pick-up points on Taobao/Tmall. Sometimes you know a pick-up point is there, but you can't get it to show on the map. Does anyone know of a tweak to show all pick-up points?

[roddy]

On 10/6/2019 at 3:09 PM, mungouk said:

Similarly, my condo appears to have mailboxes on the ground floor (L1) of each building, but after 6 months of pestering my real estate agent I never managed to get a key for mine.

Is there a building management office? They may change the lock for you for the price of a lock+profit. That's what happened when I lost my key, anyway.

[Mijin]

As a slight update, I discovered that one of the kuaidi yuan had been hiding the parcels in a water meter box that is near my front door. 

Nice of him to do that, I guess, though I couldn't find any message that told me he'd done that.

[889]

There's this notice on Tmall:

 

若快递公司未经您允许将包裹放置在智能快件箱（即自提柜）中，您有权拒收。

 

That is, it looks like the kuaidi guy is supposed to get your OK before putting your stuff in an automated pickup box. But it did happen to me once and nobody asked first.

[suMMit]

i asked a kuai di guy the other day, he told me the box is called 蜂巢 feng1 chao2, which is what the automated voice says when you scan it. im not clear whether thats a brand name or all of them are refererred to as that. They are fantastic though

[889]

. . .  [deleted original post now rethinking]

[suMMit]

not sure what that means