Delivery (commerce) - Periodic Deliveries

Periodic Deliveries

Some products are delivered to consumers on a periodic schedule. Historically, home delivery of many goods was much more common in urban centres of the developed world. At the beginning of the 20th century, perishable farm items such as milk, eggs and ice, were delivered weekly or even daily to customers by local farms. Milkmen delivered milk and other farm produce. With the advent of home refrigeration and better distribution methods, these products are today largely delivered through the same retail distribution systems as other food products. icemen delivered ice for iceboxes until the popularization of home refrigerator rendered them obsolete in most places. Similarly, laundry was once picked up and washed at a commercial laundry before being delivered to middle-class homes until the appearance of the washing machine and dryer (the lower classes washed their own and the upper classes had live-in servants). Likewise deliveries of coal and wood for home heating were more common until they were replaced in many areas by natural gas, oil, or electric heating. Some products, most notably home heating oil, are still delivered periodically.

Milk delivery continued until the mid-twentieth century across North America. For example, the last milk delivery by horse-and-wagon in Edmonton was in 1961. Milkman jokes continue in circulation long after. Related lines of Jeannie C. Riley's 1968 hit song Harper Valley PTA say:

There's old Bobby Taylor sitting there, and seven times he's asked me for a date,
And Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lot of ice whenever he's away.