Hermes have become the first UK delivery company to offer what3words as an additional address option for all customers. Some retailers such as AO.com offer what3words at checkout but, for those retailers or marketplaces that don’t, consumers can also specify a safe place in the Hermes app to make sure every parcel they order is delivered exactly they you want it.
what3words divides the world into 57 trillion 3 metre squares, giving each square a new address made up of three dictionary words. This means if you want to specify a safe place such as a shed or greenhouse you can identify the 3m square that is sits in. Unlike a PostCode and house number, a typical UK property will be made up of multiple 3m squares – my house and garden cover 39 such squares in a 3 by 13 square grid.
Using the Hermes app, customers can add the what3words address to their profile. The driver will then have the what3words address in addition to the traditional address information, such as postcodes, providing an extra layer of detail for the last mile of the delivery. This could be specifying the exact location of say a shed or greenhouse door that you’ve chosen for your safe place.
“We’re really excited to team up with what3words and become the first delivery company in the UK to provide what3words addresses for any parcel. This marks the latest development in our innovation portfolio that we had been planning for some time, however given the pandemic, when we have experienced five years’ growth in five months due to online shopping behaviours changing, we have expedited the use of this tech to further enhance our contact-free deliveries option, at a time when both our clients and their customers need efficient, safe deliveries.”
– Chris Ashworth, CIO, Hermes UK
The Hermes Parcels app is free and can be downloaded for iOS and Android. You can discover the what3words address for your property entrance or safe place via a link within the ‘My Places’ section of the Hermes app.
(If you are wondering where the ///gold.stars.jets location from the image above is, it’s bang in the middle of Hermes Morley head office.)
10 Responses
///throw.over.fence gives a location in lake Monona, Wisconsin which may explain much
Seriously whatthreewords is a great idea and Hermes adopting is a bold and potentially very smart step.
Dear Hermes. One of your drivers stole a parcel from me from my doorstep. You rejected my multiple claims. You know what I think of you.
We often have a smile
When customers insist on calling them my herpes,
We have used my Hermes this last 6 months
For hundreds of parcels
None lost , 2 damaged
Were quite happy considering the cost
Very cool idea, as long as customers dont choose locations that are open to theft.
Hmm, my esperience of hermes is dire…. home deliveries are often left over a fence, tucked behind a tree… at the wrong address or just left out in the rain..
Now we don’t get half as many issues at work…. most of the time the tracking shows it at the depot and it never moves, sometimes they save us the hassle of enquiring, by simply marking it as return to sender before it even leaves the depot ( record for this was 6 mins after it arrived at the depot!). We have however had a rather expensive item ‘left in porch’…. We don’t have a porch. It is a warehouse on an industrial estate. So the picture of the 4in door way overhang is hardlya porch. Almost as much a concerna s the fact it was left at 9.30 at night on Friday, with a sign on the door saying we were closed until Monday… Tracking was marked as delivered.
I could go on, but 99.9% of us know the deal. So as for this thing, well What3words is excellent…. but sadly will be like giving a laptop to gerbil. You see if your drivers can’t understand that over a fence is not delivering to a door way, or that no. 6 West way is not actually the same house as no 22 Apple close etc… What hope for them using an addition app to locate a particular shed etc?