Survey: 2.75 Billion Hours Wasted Waiting for Deliveries Annually

Written by Pat's Papers | Friday, 15 October 2010 10:25 AM

Listen to this shocking statistic on the front page of today’s Denver Post: Last year, Americans wasted 2.75 billion hours waiting for their packages to be delivered. That’s the equivalent of 1.3 million people out of work for a year. The problem is those three-hour windows that have become standard. And now some companies are trying to curry favor with their customers by offering to pay up for their wasted time.

Some other interesting facts from the survey, which was conducted by TOA Technologies. You can download the full report here. Or click here to see results from a similar survey given in the UK and in Germany:

On average, people waited about 5 hours for their package to arrive.

Cable and satellite TV service calls were the worst offenders. Internet providers came in a close second.

About 36 million Americans lost wages by waiting for their delivery. And the most likely to lose wages are those with the lowest incomes, who can’t afford to hire someone to wait for them.

Despite the long wait times, they have to be better than this: