C.O.D. -- Collect on Delivery.
When I was a child, Amazon did not exist. Nor did credit cards.
You shopped in stores on Main Street, and paid cash. But those stores didn't carry everything that a child -- or an adult -- might want.
Magazine ads were full of dreams, dreams you couldn't satisfy wandering through the Five & Ten. You ordered by mail. Not by going on-line. Not by dialing an 800 number. But by cutting a coupon or order form out of the magazine, filling it out with your name and address, copying the address given on the coupon onto an envelope, sticking on a 3-cent stamp, and mailing it.
How did you pay for your order. Coupons generally had three boxes for you to choose from. One was "cash." One was "check or money order." And the third was "C.O.D."
I never used C.O.D. Nor did anyone in my family. In fact, I've never talked to anyone who ever used C.O.D. What was it? It was the closest available method to ordering on credit, to using a credit card.
The advertiser filled the order and mailed the purchase to you. The postman collected the purchase price from you before handing over the merchandise, and sent the amount back to the seller. C.O.D. bought you a little additional time to get the money together to pay for the order. Maybe it also reassured suspicious purchasers that they would actually receive something in exchange for their payment.
Now we order on-line. Or by 800 number. And we pay by credit card. Who needs C.O.D.? I was thinking about this while stalled in traffic this morning. I wondered when it was that the postman stopped acting as a financial middle man between the buyer and the seller. On reflection, it sounded like an odd task for a government postal worker to undertake.
But lo and behold: To my surprise, the USPS still offers C.O.D. service. Or did, as of the end of last year. News services reported at that time that the postal service was planning to phase out C.O.D. home deliveries, although you would still be able to pick up a C.O.D. parcel at the post office and pay for it there. But no more convenient home deliveries.
If the Postal Service has its way, a service that has been around for over one hundred years will come to an end.
I was surprised that there was still any demand for this service, but there were 346,000 C.O.D. deliveries in 2015. The change is expected to have the most impact on low income customers living in rural areas. Many such customers either prefer to make purchases using this method, or do not have the credit necessary to purchase by credit card.
The change will have no impact on me. I assumed the service had died off long ago. Its survival illustrates how diverse our population is, and how many folks still feel most comfortable using methods of commerce that they learned to use in their childhood.
I guess companies must still provide coupons or order forms with a C.O.D. box waiting to be checked. I never see them anymore, but I find their continued existence to be oddly comforting.
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