The Delivery Bag Inventory Exception
A grocery delivery arrives in several bags. Before the bags are unpacked, the items are counted. The count is compared to the original order. This was not requested by the delivery service.
Terms and Conditions Governing the Delivery Bag Inventory Exception Effective Upon Receipt of Multiple Bags
Section 1: Scope
These terms apply to any grocery delivery received at a household address that contains three or more bags. By accepting delivery and closing the door, you have agreed to count the bags before unpacking them.
Section 2: The Observation
A delivery of eleven items arrived in four bags. The delivery person placed the bags inside the door and confirmed the order number. The door was closed. The bags were then counted.
The count was four. The order confirmed four bags. The count was correct. The bags were then counted again.
Section 3: The Item-Level Inventory
Following bag count confirmation, items are removed from bags one at a time and placed on the counter. Each item is identified and held briefly while the person conducting the inventory mentally locates it on the original order. Items that are immediately recognizable as correct require approximately one second each. Items in unfamiliar packaging require three seconds.
The count matches. The items are correct. The inventory has now been performed.
Section 4: The Governing Rule
The inventory check has never recovered a missing item in time for the delivery person to provide it. The inventory check continues. This is the relationship between the inventory check and its stated purpose: the purpose is not served by the timing, and the timing is not adjusted to serve the purpose.
If an item is discovered missing after the delivery person has departed, the correct resolution is the app's refund process. The app's refund process works. The inventory check does not prevent the need for the refund process. It does not accompany the refund process. It occurs before either scenario is necessary, at a moment when neither outcome has been determined.
Section 5: The Substitution Clause
When a delivery contains a substituted item, which is an item replaced by the delivery service because the original item was unavailable, the substitution is always discovered during the inventory check rather than before it. The inventory check converts a substitution from a surprise discovered during unpacking into a surprise discovered during inventory. The emotional content of the surprise is identical. The inventory check has moved its timing forward by approximately ninety seconds.
Section 6: The Contradiction
Several delivery applications send a notification when an item is unavailable or substituted. This notification arrives before the delivery. The person who conducts the inventory check has already read this notification. They know about the substitution. They locate the substituted item during the inventory check anyway, as if discovering it for the first time.
The count is performed. The count matches. The bags are then unpacked.
Section 7: Limitation
These terms do not govern the separate practice of examining fresh produce items for quality upon unpacking. That is a different practice with different terms. Those terms also have not been formalized.