For starters, sign up to My Post, available through the Aust Post site. It's free to join. Then download the My Post app onto your phone. When you are getting a delivery, you will get notifications, including that it's up for delivery that day.
I would then set up a parcel collect address for your local post office. You can do that via the app. Instead of your address being:
John Smith
41 That Street
Some Place 1100
It will look like:
John Smith
Parcel Collect 12345-67890
123 Post Office Street (that actual address of your post office)
Some Place 1100.
What that means is, any parcel that would be delivered by AP or Star Track, will be sent straight to the PO. You are notified that it's ready for collection through the app, and have 4 weeks to collect it. It is different again to a parcel locker, which you can access at any time of the day or night. BTW, it doesn't cost any extra postage to have you items sent parcel collect or parcel locker. It's not a premium service.
I started using that option because I got sick of parcels getting stolen from the front door. I got a notification at 7.15am this morning saying I have a parcel ready to collect from the PO.
The really good thing about parcel collect is if you are going away somewhere and want a delivery, you can change the location to the closest PO near where you're going. Your My Post number stays the same, you just need to change the address to whatever the PO is that would be closest to you. The app will tell you the address.
With My Post, for a lot of deliveries, you can get mail redirected. So, if you have something coming, and you can see the tracking, and you suddenly have to go away somewhere, you can redirect it to where you're staying. It adds an extra day or 2, but saves an item sitting at your front door until you get home. With parcel collect, you don't need to worry about that, because it will sit at the PO waiting for you.
Seriously, this can solve a lot of your problems with delivery. Definitely worth looking into. The only time you can't use parcel collect is if the seller uses a courier. You can use it for overseas purchases if they are sending it regular mail and not a courier service.
When making an ebay purchase, or from another platform, change your address to the parcel collect address, in PayPal, or your preferred payment option, before payment, and you're good to go.
