Most homes now have computers in them, maybe even more than one, and we live in an age where we don’t need to go out shopping to purchase luxuries or necessities anymore. We can simply do so in the comfort of our own home through the Internet.

Of course, when we place an order through the Internet the products still need to be delivered to our house, and it isn’t the retailers that do this – it’s a network of national, and in some cases international courier companies.

Courier Companies work tirelessly through the night, doing long hours to make sure that our products reach us on time and in one piece.

You will probably have seen that you have a number of options for shipping when you get to your online checkout, giving you different time scales for deliveries. Its up to the courier company to make sure this can happen.

With the growth of the Internet we have also seen a demand created that has lead to the growth of the courier industry.

What you might not realise is that, when you are placing an order on a web site, the company might not be based in the U.K, but in mainland Europe or even the United States of America. Of course this means that the courier service used to get the goods to you isn’t just a ground service (i.e. a van) but an International Courier service which is most likely to include air travel. You can usually tell if air travel is involved because the cost of the shipping increases quite dramatically!

Even with a national courier service, your product might change hands 2 or 3 times. If you are ordering from a London based company, for example, and you are based in Liverpool you might find that the order gets sent to one or more hubs before reaching your destination.

With most courier companies you can track your order online, and sometimes its interesting to find out exactly where the consignment has gone to in order to get to you – it’s final destination.