Gothenburg, Sweden - A long time ago, a wise (and very wealthy) friend taught a penniless engineering student (me) that money can't buy you love, health or happiness.
What it can buy you is time - the freedom to do the things you enjoy while other people do the chores.
And now Volvo has bought into that concept with a new way to take some of the schlep out of Christmas shopping - the world's first commercially available in-car delivery service.
Volvo has teamed up with three big Scandinavian online vendors - communications and logistics supplier Postnord, online toy and baby goods store Lekmer.com and Swedish online grocery retailer Mat.se.
Now, if you live in Gothenburg, you don't have to crawl through the traffic to the mall, do the dodgems to get a perking spot and shoulder your way into the stores.
ORDER ONLINE
Simply order your goods online and choose the In-Car Delivery option at the online checkout; the Volvo Delivery Service will find your car by means of its GPS and send that location to the vendor's delivery team, along with a one-time-only digital keycode that will access the boot of your Volvo.
You then get a text notifying you that the goods have been delivered and your only problem is to get back to your car and drive home before the ice cream melts.
At the moment in-car delivery is only available for Volvo drivers in Gothenburg who subscribe to the Volvo on Call service, but Volvo plans to roll it out elsewhere in Sweden and, in the future, to other countries as well - with a wider range of goods available as more online vendors join the service.
Marketing vice-president Björn Annwall said: "In-car delivery proves that connected car technology can be used to save people time and make their lives easier."
But chief information officer Klas Bendrik pointed out: "We're not interested in technology for the sake of technolog. If a technology doesn't make a customer's life easier, better, safer or more fun, we don't use it."