Internet shopping is booming.
It could provide a new era of prosperity for Royal Mail and job security for postal workers.

The appeal is convenience; you order your goods over the internet and get them delivered to your door.
But, there are two problems:
(i) For security, someone has to be at home to take the delivery.
(ii) Your credit card details can be stolen when you pay for the goods.

In this article we suggest solutions to both problems.

1. You have to hang around all day waiting for a delivery.

In principle, the problem can be solved by having a secure box or locked porch that the delivery team have access to.

But there are  problems:
(i) Customers want a choice of locks and storage box designs.
(ii) Customers are not be keen on giving keys away to strangers.
(iii) Delivery workers don't want the hassle of carrying lots of keys around.
(iv) There needs to be scope for innovation in the lock and storage container manufacturing markets.

1792 Technology solves all of these problems.

* The cardboard key is destroyed as the lock is opened.
* It doubles up as a delivery label.
* The key is designed to open a range of mechanical and electronic locks, providing scope for  innovation in lock design.

Fig. 1. The 1792 cardboard key is designed to operate a range of locks. The essential design features would be agreed by by major lock manufactories in a pre-competitive collaboration. The options illustrated are only suggestions.

The action of opening any 1792 compatible lock would destroy the key, leaving half of it inside the lock.

Fig. 2. The "signed" stub provides the delivery company with proof of delivery. Punched holes and printed signature codes are just two of the options lock manufacturers could agree on.

Once a common key design has been agreed, the rest is up to the market. Here's three examples of market segments:

* Technophobe living in a flat. Takes occasional deliveries of small items.
  Buys a small secure storage box, protected by a keypad operated lock.

* Technophobe living in a house with an external porch door.
  Has a 1792 keypad  lock fitted to the outer door of the porch.

* Regular computer user who is at ease with modern technology.
   Has an electronic lock fitted. This is wi-fi or Bluetooth coupled to their computer.

1792 Technology - Fraudulent Keys

Simple mechanical versions of the lock could be set to open once only, before the customer removes their goods. So, if a thief breaks into the storage container using a copied key, they will find it empty.

Electronic versions of the lock, linked to home computers would be immune to the forgery problem, because the operating software could be designed to generate a fresh security number for each home delivery at the same address. 
When placing an order over the internet, the automatic form filling software would also generate a fresh random number for each delivery.

Why is it called "1792 Technology"?

1792 locks include a Guillotine to chop the keys in two.  The Guillotine was invented during the French Revolution in 1792 by Dr. Guillotine.

1792 Lock & Key Technology is a joint Bill Courtney/Richard Klee invention.

2. Your credit card details can be stolen when you pay for
      the goods.

Currently, we have to place our trust in every one of the internet shopping companies we deal with. This is (probably) fine for the big companies we have dealt with for years, but how do we trust the new players?

The solution: Instead of paying each company direct, use Royal Mail  as a trusted intermediary.
All participating companies would have an account number with Royal Mail that the customer would pay into. If things do go wrong and a customer's credit card details are stolen, then one central "fraud buster" office run by trained staff within  Royal Mail would provide greater reassurance for the customer, compared with hundreds of smaller companies having to employ fraud busting specialists.

This would create jobs within Royal Mail , while assisting the competitiveness of new players in the internet shopping markets.

3  Protecting the jobs of walking postmen and women

The walking delivery teams are far more environmentally friendly than parcel delivery vans. But, as the internet shopping business expands, the physical carrying capacity of the walking teams will soon be exceeded.

The solution is simple:  Delivery vans would drop off large, secure, pre-packed  parcel storage boxes to existing pillar box sites. The portable parcel storage boxes would be chained to the pillar boxes, to prevent theft. 
The final stage of delivery would be undertaken by the foot teams.

This system would be time efficient and have a wow carbon footprint: Delivering and picking up the parcel storage boxes could double up with mail collections.

In the pre-Christmas period when pillar boxes tend to fill up quickly, excess mail could be transferred to the parcel storage boxes.
This job could be done by the walking postal workers making return visits to the parcel boxes, to pick up fresh parcels.

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