A DHL manager hands a package to a courier from a boat carrying express packages in one of the canals of Amsterdam.
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E-commerce is growing worldwide, but the logistics can get complicated in hard-to-reach places.
The population, topography, and traffic of different locales create challenges for deliveries.
Here are some unique deliveries in Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Rwanda, the US and more.
Even in the simplest scenario of a truck driving up to a cul de sac and dropping a package on a doorstep, last-mile delivery is difficult and expensive to manage.
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Factor in immense traffic congestion, unreasonable weather, uncrossable terrain, or geographically secluded areas, and logistics companies end up in some pretty remarkable situations just to get packages delivered on time in regions around the world.
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In China's $2.6 trillion e-commerce market, two-day delivery is expected. ZTO Express couriers mostly deliver Alibaba packages.Workers line up ahead of the Singles Day rush — a massive shopping holiday in China.
Though delivery speed is incredibly fast, China's logistics operations range from high-tech and automated to chaotic and very low-tech.Here’s an express package sorting center in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province of China during the first year of the pandemic.
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And big surges in online orders still create chaotic scenes.Here’s another sortation facility in the same region in December 2022.
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There are also many different package pickup schemes in play in China like these autonomous lockers from Alibaba's logistics arm, Cainiao.A man gets express packages from Cainiao's autonomous delivery robot in Huai'an, Jiangsu Province of China. Cainiao is the logistics arm of Alibaba.
Walls of parcel pickup lockers are also a fairly common sight.A delivery worker leaves packages at a residential compound's self-pickup and drop-off service box in Beijing.
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And in some neighborhoods picking up an online order is even lower tech with shelves stationed outside gated communities.Residents pick up their packages at the entrance of a gated community in Beijing, China.
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Lockers are popular in densely populated areas like big cities where packages may be easily stolen, but they're also used in places where residents are spread out like rural Canada.Some rural mail delivery was cut off by Canada Post over safety fears for carriers delivering by car who can't pull far enough off the road to put mail in boxes. Rural residents must now drive up to six kilometers to retrieve their mail from temporary grouped boxes.
Sometimes remote places are easier to reach via waterways, like in the Cranberry Isles in Maine where the United States Postal Service sends a mail boat rather than a mail truck.The mail boat sometimes brings in needed resources like doctors in addition to mail to the Cranberry Isles on the islands off the Maine coast.
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People on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, also sometimes receive deliveries by boat.Nopadol Choihirun is one of Bangkok's last remaining postmen to deliver mail by boat to waterfront homes in low-lying parts of the capital.
AFP PHOTO / Lillian SUWANRUMPHA
In Venice, Italy, boats are the fastest way to get around by far — and that includes package delivery. Traveling by boat is essential to avoid the tourist-jammed streets.A loaded DHL delivery boat sits dockside in Venice, Italy.
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In Berlin, Germany, DHL, which is owned by the German postal service, uses waterways to keep out of traffic.A solar-powered DHL boat travels along the Spree river in Berlin, Germany.
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And in the Netherlands, boats get bicycle couriers closer to their destination for time-sensitive deliveries.Called a "floating service center", this boat operated by DHL Express was launched over a decade ago as a way to more efficiently transport express deliveries in Amsterdam.
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Smaller more nimble vehicles often make deliveries possible in congested cities like downtown Bangkok.A delivery man for a courier company transports packages on motorcycle in Bangkok on August 11, 2020.
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In famously congested London, UPS uses eQuad electric bicycles to get around traffic.Driven here by UPS’s head of fleet maintenance, these electric eQuad eclectic cycles allow secure package delivery vehicles to use the bike lane to avoid traffic.
To deliver in even more extreme congestion, a startup called Favela Brasil Xpress has begun using tricycles to get through Sao Paulo, Brazil's crowded favelas.Delivery workers for Brazilian start-up Favela Xpress dare to go where traditional companies won't: Brazil's favelas.
Drone delivery is very slowly growing in the US, but in countries with more rural populations, like Rwanda, it's catching on.After delivering medical supplies during the pandemic, Zipline drones expanded to e-commerce deliveries in December.
Drones are spreading in Texas though, as Walmart's pandemic-inspired delivery program is expanding to Arizona and Florida.A resident watches as a drone delivers a COVID-19 self collection test kit to her home, after being ordered from Walmart, amid a coronavirus surge on November 20, 2020 in El Paso, Texas. Residents who live within 1.5 miles of the Walmart Supercenter in East El Paso were eligible for the free kits
In some places, like Alaska's smaller villages, deliveries by air are literally the only option due to extreme cold.A pile of deliveries sits on the tarmac of the airport in the Native Village of St. Michael, Alaska, population 400. Transportation from villages to Nome is limited to air travel.
Germany's North Sea Islands also require some unique mail service since the island of Baltrum has no cars (and no street names).Andre Krandick, postman, distributes letters and parcels on the East Frisian island of Baltrum.
Mackinac Island in the US state of Michigan also requires delivery companies like UPS to make adjustments to the norm. No cars are allowed, so UPS drivers deliver with horses and carts.A UPS driver delivers packages on Mackinac Island Michigan, using a horse drawn cart.
Germany's Neuwerk island also challenges the local post office since its famed mud flats are a protected national landmark. Horses are the only way to make it through the mud.A mailman stands on a mud flat carriage of the postal service on Neuwerk island, Germany. For 20 years, Neuwerk island did not have its own post office. Since then, the mailman brings the post three times per week during winter and up to six times per week during summer across the mud flat from Cuxhaven to the island.
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Germany's mudflats also led Knud Knudsen to volunteer as the mail carrier on a tiny islet with three inhabitants in the North Sea.Knud Knudsen makes the trek to Hallig Suederoog Islet two to three times a week by walking across the mudflats at low tide. Knudsen, born on Pellworm, works at the local coast guard and volunteers as the postman for Hallig Suederoog.
Even in dryer climates, animals are still used to deliver mail — like at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona where mules deliver mail to the native people who live there five days per week.The United State Postal Service still uses mules to deliver to the Havasupai people who live in the Grand Canyon.
