Work from home presents challenges during holiday shopping season

Tuesday, November 24, 2020
Work from home presents challenges during holiday shopping season
This year, keeping packages a secret may be challenging as many work and learn from home.

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Many Americans are in the holiday spirit and that means buying gifts. This year, keeping packages a secret may be challenging as many work and learn from home.

"One of the features that Amazon customers can take advantage of this year is a feature called map tracking, which helps tell them when their item is 10 stops away or less. So they'll know exactly where their packages en route to their home. Also when it arrives, so they can head out to their doorstep, get their package and then hide it from, say, a curious child or a loved one at home," said Alyssa Bronikowski, Amazon spokesperson.

We spoke with Amazon representative Alyssa Bronikowski about how to keep holiday shopping spoiler-free. She says customers can take advantage of photo on delivery.

Customers receive an image of where their item was placed by a delivery driver, whether it's their doorstep or the side of their home. You can also choose another location.

"They can always select their delivery location as an Amazon hub location or new this holiday season, an Amazon physical retail location. This enables customers to pick up their packages on the go and similar to delivery at their home address," Bronikowski said.

Just enter your zip code when checking out to the location closest to you.

New this holiday season, Prime members in 4,000 cities like Fresno can have boxes delivered in their garage if they have smart connected technology.

Since many will not gather this year, Amazon says they expect to see more people shipping gifts to their loved ones. They recommend marking the item as a gift.

Amazon has hired an additional 200,000 full time and part-time positions to account for the busy holiday shipping season.

"Our recommendation is to get ahead of holiday shopping this year. However, if you are a procrastinator and say you do like to wait until the last minute, we do release shipping cut-off dates closer to the peak of the holiday season," Bronikowski said.