Today’s gold standard for shipping is getting tougher and tougher to refine simply because we’re maxing out the speed at which an item can be bought online, packaged, and shipped to that person’s front door. It doesn’t get much faster than 2 to 3 days without expecting someone to pay a ridiculous amount of money for one-day shipping.

Recently, my mom sent me a small parcel as a joke based on something we had just talked about a few days prior. I was so surprised that the package made it in two or three days time, simply because it wasn’t labeled as having been shipped on one or two days shipping but was merely priority mail through the post office. Yet still, here the package was in just a matter of two days. While the contents weren’t anything special or a must have for me, it was just funny how quickly it got to my doorstep without having extra postage on it for quicker shipping.

Much in the same way, I recently bought gifts for my girlfriend since her birthday is fast approaching, and those shipping boxes arrived at my doorstep two entire days before they were supposed to. Was I bothered by this? Not really at all, no. Sure, I had planned on them arriving two days later, so I wasn’t even looking for them on my doorstep in the snow this past weekend, but nonetheless, they made it to my door on a “non business day” and came as quite the surprise to me. I was pretty happy to have them safe and stored inside rather than having to worry about it sitting out in the open on my doorstep while I was at work two days later.

It ultimately surprises me how quickly items are shipped without paying extra for shipping these days. If we wanted things this fast just a decade or two ago, the price for shipping would’ve increased significantly. But again, today’s gold standard is just two or three days with hardly any extra cost, making online shopping seem as if it were on par with shopping at the mall.

Shipping boxes need merely a label and their contents to get out on the road and onto your doorstep nowadays, especially with streamlined shipping processes in bigger companies. If your shipping setup has a hitch in it or seems outdated by any means, customers will move on to other companies, because today’s era is one of demand and impatience.