As online shopping becomes ever more popular it would seem we have a growing problem with package deliveries. 3.6 million of us had a package go astray last year. Did this happen to you?
How well do you remember 1995? Robson and Jerome were riding high in the charts with their timeless cover of Unchained Melody, Toy Story was the king of the box office and a couple of little known companies called Ebay and Amazon kicked off their online sales businesses.
Fast forward to today where 9 in 10 of us have internet access: online sales now account for more than 12% of all retail sales in the UK and Amazon alone made £6.3bn of sales in the UK last year.
But all of these orders need to be delivered somewhere.
£250m online orders missing
According to research carried out by Opinium for the insurer Direct Line, over the past year more than £250m worth of online shopping has either gone missing or not been delivered.
And it’s estimated that around 3.6 million of us had packages we’d ordered online go missing last year – worth an average £69 per package.
Is there cause for concern that as much as £250m worth of online shopping could have just vanished in 2015?
Or is it a price we’re willing to pay so we’re able order whatever we want, whenever we want safe from the loving embrace of our sofas?
And, importantly, where the hell is this £250m worth of online shopping?
Your delivery rights
Fortunately, if your order does go missing you have fairly comprehensive legal protection.
Did you know that the retailer is responsible for the safe delivery of your order? Not the courier company and certainly not you. So don’t get fobbed off!
This means that if any order fails to turn up the retailer is in breach of contract, and you’re perfectly within your rights to demand a full refund, or the dispatch of a replacement item.
The Consumer Rights Act also introduced a default delivery period of 30 days during which the retailer needs to deliver, unless a longer period has been agreed. Failure to do so constitutes a breach of contract.
Over to you
Are you one of the possible 3.6 million people who’ve had a delivery go astray? Or maybe it’s cropped up in a rather unexpected place – a wheelie bin, behind the car, or underneath the garden gnome perhaps?