A young man hitting the road on a high-speed motorcycle is the typical image of delivery drivers here, but recently Korean consumers’ growing demands for safer services has been changing the scene. 

Park Jae-yeol, 69, delivers some 180 packages spread over three days each week to his apartment neighbors in Eungam-dong, Seoul, using an electric handcart.

He is one of some 470 senior deliverymen, aged over 60, working for the country’s largest logistics firm CJ Korea Express.

“For the firm, the ‘Silver door-to-door courier business’ solves the manpower shortage problem and the seniors increase efficiency as they can easily access the apartment complex or houses in a narrow road with the carts where large trucks find it hard to park,” CJ Korea Express spokesman Han Jong-hee said.

After a delivery truck driver drops off the parcels at a small center in the morning, the seniors sort them out according to apartment blocks close to where they live.

“I believe that customers trust us more than ordinary deliverymen because we are in charge of a smaller area of about 100 households at an apartment complex. I got familiar with them,” said Park who started working at the firm in 2014. He gets around 300,000 won ($260) as monthly pay, 450 won per package.

The elderly deliverymen help reduce customer complaints on lost packages and those sent to the wrong address as they are able to revisit the place to fix the problems, since they reside next door and have flexible schedules.

With the volume of parcels soaring, the number of complaints reported to the Korea Consumer Agency on home delivery services increased to 333 last year, up from 130 in 2009.

Hiring female delivery people is another solution employed by retail giants for customers who may feel uncomfortable opening their doors to strangers.

“I tend to have fear and hesitation opening the door as I get to hear many crimes happening in residential streets. But if it’s a woman who passes over the box, I feel safer,” housewife Ham Sun-hae said.

Ahead of the Chuseok holiday, major department stores including Lotte, Hyundai and Shinsegae have hired female delivery part-timers for the busy season.

Lotte Department Store expanded the number of deliverywomen by 30 percent from a year earlier for the peak week from Sept. 18-25.

“For Chuseok, we employed part-time female delivery staff in a bid to reduce anxiety that our female customers may feel,” a Lotte official said. Hyundai Department Store is taking a similar step by dispatching female employees consisting of students and housewives in their 20s-40s.

Currently, over 100 female and senior delivery staff work at McDonald’s Korea, which started home delivery service in 2007.

“There’s no restriction on women and elderly people to be delivery staff at McDonald’s. Opportunities are opened to all regardless of their gender or age,” Woo Seo-hee, a deliveryman-turned-branch manager said.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)