FedEx will soon photograph your package to prove it was delivered

FedEx will soon take photos of packages at your doorstep to provide proof of delivery when they don’t require a signature.

“This is something e-commerce merchants and customers have been asking for, and we are proud to be the first to announce this service will be available to residential customers,” Brie Carere, FedEx’s chief customer officer, said in a press release announcing the program today.

The free service will be available for both FedEx Express and FedEx Ground delivery customers with and without a login to the FedEx Delivery Manager, the company’s free portal.

The new program will obviously be a good source of protection for FedEx, and it should also help business owners whose customers report that their package hasn’t been delivered. It will also be a good resource for customers to figure out whether or not packages ever made it to their door, especially if they’ve gone missing.

Amazon rolled out a similar program called Photo On Delivery back in 2018. It was meant to provide proof of delivery and help customers locate their packages, but it was only available in certain areas. The program allowed the images to be used by Amazon to verify a package’s location, perform quality control, and investigate any issues raised by a customer, Amazon said. Customers who didn’t want photos of their packages taken were able to opt out of the program.

Customers without a FedEx account will be able to view their image through FedEx’s tracking tool by entering their tracking number. Those with an account can view it through the FedEx Delivery Manager.

FedEx says that the service will first be available for FedEx Delivery Manager users in “select markets” before launching to customers in the US and Canada in time for the holiday shipping season.