Errol Clarke of Every Blooming Thing delivers a floral arrangement to Mrs Janet Stewart of Bearings and Seals Limited. (Photos: Michael Gordon)

Once upon a time not too long ago in the city of Kingston, a cart-and-mule dray would deliver freshly baked bread to your house and the tinsmith would pass by once a month to repair your pots and pans. In the country, you could ask the "dentist" to set up his surgery on your verandah and presto, extractions and fillings on your doorstep.

Time has rolled on, and the wonderful inventions of the supermarket and the shopping centre have made it easier and convenient to access goods and services at one location. However, at-home deliveries and other door-to-door services are still in demand, and are seemingly being well-patronised.

The Postal Corporation has been a leader in this area, delivering a mixed bag - telegrams, utility bills, as well as greeting cards from foreign. However, if your relative sends you a barrel from abroad, or you ordered some books through the Internet, you can choose from the 20 delivery services in the Corporate Area alone that serve private as well as commercial interests to pick it up and drop it off for you.

Fast food restaurants that deliver and florists have an established association with home deliveries.

Proprietor of Every Blooming Thing Ann Marie Weise says, Most people want us to deliver the flowers and we also help them to find the words to write up the gift cards." Delivery in most parts of the Corporate Area is within the range of their competitors at $300, a price that consumers seem willing to pay as many florists offer this as a standard part of service. However, whereas florists receive their payments beforehand, food deliveries seem prepared to take the risk of cash-on-delivery, because they know that you are hungry and the money involved is relatively small.

Manager of Consolidated Bakeries, makers of Purity baked products, Vincent Chang, noted that the company started home deliveries by cart-and-mule in the late 50s when somebody was always at home to receive the goods - or the money was left on the gate column. The cart man would take that up and leave the bread with every confidence that it would be found in good condition when the residents returned. That arrangement is not so possible these days because of security risks and the cost to deliver each loaf.
The company still has one delivery vehicle: a motor van that delivers to some 30 longstanding customers in the immediate neighbourhood.

"Automobile services like an oil change and a car wash is already out there," says working mother-of-three Marie, "but bring my gas to me and fill up my car tank... wow!! I'd pay for that."

Marie will have to wait a while because no service station, as yet, offers this, however automobile services such as refrigeration re-gassing and detail cleaning is available at your door. But the customer service agent at New Line Motors cautioned that full automobile service at home is fraught with challenges.

"We have to be careful about working on cars, especially in secured areas, so what we offer is courtesy drop-off and pick ups after the customer brings in their cars."

Super Clean Car Care Centre said that customers sometimes call and ask if their vehicles can be cleaned at home, but for similar reasons, they prefer to make the waiting area comfortable rather than to send a team to the location.

From car cleaning to dry cleaning, Thursday Life spoke with a few persons who would gladly pay for someone to pick up their personal laundry and deliver it clean, ironed and folded.
Manager Anthony Harris of Super Cleaners dry cleaners thinks that cost would be a serious limitation for this service.
"Dry cleaning costs are high because everything is imported and we try to reduce costs not increase them, but we would look at it. We would really like to do that because we have a lot of things hanging on the line, and people will not come to collect. One of the problems that we would have to overcome in many cases is who the money would be left with at home."

He told Thursday Life that in the 22 years of business, he has provided collection and delivery service for hotels and restaurants, but he has not had requests for similar service for personal laundry.

Adrian Genus of Genus Pharmacy with three locations in Portmore, however, says that he has been repeatedly urged to provide a delivery service. At the moment he only does it for a few elderly customers who patronised him when he opened his first store.

"One of the drawbacks to providing this service is how we handle cash and we have been thinking of substituting something for actual cash. Some pharmaceuticals are expensive and a prescription can come up to $10,000.00."
On the matter of delivery cost, Genus would feel comfortable with a $50 charge to anywhere in Portmore.

On the point of payments, a few banks now offer on-line services, but none so far extend this to foreign exchange transactions. Richard Kildare, Marketing Manager at NCB said that the company has received requests from customers who are interested in the conveniece of clearing their foreign currency credit cards through their E-Link system as they do local credit cards.

"We are in the process of accommodating foreign currency transactions online and are developing the system to handle the processes," he noted.

But even with this in place, you might just have a computer problem that prevents you from going online. Managing director of Computers Satellite Electronics Andrew Barrett provides at-home service, but cautions that this might not be the best choice.

"If it is not a commercial system we encourage people to bring in their computers because after we assess a situation the home environment might not have everything that is required to do repairs or reloading and that can take as long as four hours," he says and that most customers agree to come in after they learn that the rates are $1,500 for the first hour and $1,000 for every hour afterwards, versus a standard service charge of $1,500 for the first three hours in the office. He also noted that at-home tutoring is in demand and one benefit that customers have had when technicians
come to their homes, is that they use the time to get answers to a wide range of user problems that they had been facing.
Barrett says that he recommends that owners get tutoring through software for $2,000, an at-your-leisure, walk-though, easy alternative, than a private tutor that he believes will end up costing four times that price.

The house calls that many people would appreciate though is the romance of a doctor's visit in the privacy and convenience of their own home. One Kingston doctor says that only a few doctors still build their practice around house visits, and she does them for a few of her elderly clients who are shut-ins, but this is not the preferred way to see clients.
"I try to persuade those who can to come in, because one can do more in the office. When you go to a patients house, you are in their setting and not yours where you might have a certain rhythm, and have your examination bed, rather than a double bed where you have to be kneeling. A house call cannot be hurried because it is in part a social visit as well as a professional visit."

Personal care visits also include the beautician, especially for special events such as weddings where an entire bridal party is prepared at home. Like many of these delivery services, most are not advertised and are based on one-on-one arrangements with a professional who feels comfortable to go into your space and you to allow them in. In the cases that we have seen, once the price is right and the service is what you want, there is a good chance that customers will want you to give it to them right at their door.

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