Where’s the Convenience?
Posted on | June 6, 2012 | 7 Comments
Continuing on the never-ending theme of things that can drive me crazy – or at least leave me scratching my head:
It’s true that you often don’t realize how good you’ve got things until they aren’t available to you anymore.
In my kid’s school, they have a monthly reading plan; each month is a new book to read. They have one class hour per week dedicated to reading and discussing the book, which are classics from Spanish, Peruvian, British and American authors. There is a particular publisher of the books that is used, because some of them are in abridged form, making it easier for the kids’ to finish it up in a month, I guess. Not sure why you’d need a month to read “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, I think I did it in a couple of days… but I digress.
One of the books has proved elusive; my husband has been to all the booksellers on the list the school gave us, but hasn’t been able to find a copy. So, I went online to see if I could find a copy to download.
Hey I’m willing to pirate, if that’s what it takes for my child’s education!
While I was looking, I ran across an online bookseller here in Lima – I could order the book online, and they’d deliver it to the house – and the cost was actually less than the list price we’d seen at the stores. Nice!
So I ordered it.
Except, it didn’t give me anyway to pay for it – despite the sign having all the credit card and paypal symbols, as if I should be able to pay them that way.
Instead, I got a message, “We will be contacting you with payment details.”
TWO DAYS later, I get an email. The price of 10 soles now has an 8 soles delivery fee attached - the website mentioned nothing about the delivery fee.
AND in order to pay, I have to go to the bank and deposit the money into their account, then email them with the deposit information. And once they verify the deposit, they’ll send someone with the book.
Seriously – what the hell?
What is the ever-loving point in paying almost double for the book to include delivery if I’ve still got to go out to the bank?? I’d rather go buy the book than have to spend time at the bank!
Why have all those credit card and paypal symbols if they aren’t going to let me pay with them directly to their site for the purchase? Why not deliver the book and let me pay cash to the delivery person?
I miss being at home where I could just use Amazon.com to order something and have it show up 2 days later.
I guess I shouldn’t complain though; in reality delivery is usually one of the best things about living here. Just about any restaurant you can think of does delivery. So do pharmacies, which is a godsend when you’ve got a sick kid in the middle of the night. Even my laundromat and the people who wash my dogs do pick up and deliver.
You know, now that I think about it – this is one of the few times when delivery has been a hassle. I knew there was a reason I love living in Peru. 
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7 Responses to “Where’s the Convenience?”
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I got tired of life happening while I made other plans, so I quit my job and came to Peru. I live here with my Peruvian husband, two sons, three dogs and various other family members, depending on the weather.
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June 6th, 2012 @ 18:02
Won’t Ammozon mail to Peru?? I sometimes think that the reason this nation (USA) is such a mess and becoming worse by the day is because things are to easy. We expect ease. We crave it because we don’t won’t to have to go out of our way for anything. This has nothing to do with your issue of book delivery. Your story just reminded me of how spoiled the people in the US are.
June 6th, 2012 @ 19:28
I think we crave convenience because there’s so much in our lives that is complicated! I know a lot of people do want things to be easy; I think there was a tendency over the last couple of generations for parents to do too much for their kids, and it’s led to kids today who expect things to be easy for them, simply because they’ve never had to struggle.
That said – I don’t think that the expectation of ease in transactions is a sign of being spoiled – rather it’s a sign of the understanding by business that you work for your customers, not the other way around. Businesses do what they have to to make transactions easy for the customer, because that’s what customers are paying for. And if you’re paying for it, you’re not being spoiled, you’re getting what you pay for.
There’s a huge difference between being willing to pay for convenience and expecting convenience as your right because you shouldn’t ever have to work for anything.
June 13th, 2012 @ 11:41
Hassles, yes, we expats like to complain
and then we realize what the perks are in many of our countries and it doesn’t look so bad.
I remember expats in Ghana complaining they couldn’t get strawberries or raspberries, while for a pittance they’d have a basket full of mangoes, pineapples and other luscious tropical fruit. Go figure!
We always want want we can’t have, it seems!
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June 17th, 2012 @ 11:18
Wow! What a crazy story! But you’re right, I love the convenience of so many things in Lima. Delivery service, lavanderias, buses, taxis, bodegas on every corner, panaderias. But books, oh, yes, books! Don’t know how I survived before Kindle. Now I get most books that I want within a minute. And, by the way, you can download Kindle books to your PC even if you don’t own a Kindle.
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August 10th, 2012 @ 11:15
LOL It sounds like Peru! When my family comes to visit me here in the US, sometimes they think I am a bit “lazy” for ordering online when sometimes I could just go tot he store and buy it. The thing is that if I order online is because I get better deals that way and most often I get free shipping.
Peruvians (mostly in Lima) have the advantage that you can find almost anything that you need locally (formally and informally), so there is no strong online shopping culture yet. But I am guessing that will be changing soon.
If I ever go back to live in Peru (which I do hope I will someday) that would be one of the many things I will miss! But if I get to eat my Peruvian bread every morning with breakfast and lonche, then all will be good! :0)
August 10th, 2012 @ 11:36
And our panaderia delivers! So you get your fresh bread plus delivery
December 10th, 2012 @ 11:53
This is too funny, but I get it. I’ll never forget a trip my bestie and I took to my home country of Panama. She had never been, so I did my best to give her an idea of what to expect. My parents live in the burbs and the neighbors have roosters, so there’s a wake up call. I also told her that every so often, there’s a guy in truck with a loud speaker, drives door to door with that morning’s seafood catch and he has a little chant he does.
Of course, she didn’t believe me. There we were our first morning in my parents home, trying not to wake up and the roosters started off around 5am. We ignored them. Then around 7:30, we were roused by ‘PESCAO, PESCAO, PARGO, CORVINA, CAMARONES, PESCAOOO!
We still laugh hysterically, but, we had an awesome FRESH fish fillet for lunch!