A clothing shop selling through social media, doing about forty parcels a day, roughly a third of them to Hulhumalé and most of them unpaid until delivery.
The arrangement is unremarkable and it is the whole point. Collection at half past eleven every working day from their store room, by the same rider. Malé parcels go out on the afternoon rounds. Hulhumalé parcels join the half past two crossing, and anything handed to us after two goes on the following morning's crossing rather than being promised for that evening.
Cash is collected on about seventy per cent of parcels, at two per cent of the collected value, and it reaches their account the next working morning with a statement listing every parcel, what was collected and who signed for it. We do not net that against the delivery invoice, because a shop cannot check a statement that has been netted.
Their first attempt rate with us is ninety eight point one per cent, against about eighty nine per cent with their previous arrangement. The whole difference is telephone numbers: we refused parcels without one for three weeks until the habit changed, which was an awkward three weeks and has been worth it for two years.