Postage costs

[yello]

I needed some spare parts for an extractor fan. From the European distributor (Germany) spares cost is €3.50 and €30 postage! You what!! Can't they just stick it in a jiffy bag? Doesn't need to come by courier.

The same parts from the UK supplier (who do not ship to France) £3.49 and £4 UK delivery. I think I might be phoning a friend (if I had one)

 

[markemark]

I needed some spare parts for an extractor fan. From the European distributor (Germany) spares cost is €3.50 and €30 postage! You what!! Can't they just stick it in a jiffy bag? Doesn't need to come by courier.

The same parts from the UK supplier (who do not ship to France) £3.49 and £4 UK delivery. I think I might be phoning a friend (if I had one)

My business no longer distributes with Royal Mail. Crap tracking, delayed, lost items. We only use couriers and charge accordingly. It’s better to lose out on a few sales than spend resources fixing Royal Mail issues.

 

[yello]

I asked them if there were postage options. The response...

We are only sending with UPS. You could also arrange a pick up.

... is that German humour

 

[ianrauk]

My business no longer distributes with Royal Mail

Our business are currently moving away from RM, they really are poor.

 

[markemark]

I asked them if there were postage options. The response...



... is that German humour

Why? It’s what we say too. We have tried numerous couriers and Royal Mail. We have chosen the best one based on service, reliability, cost and IT. Our customer have the option for us to sort or they collect themelsves.

Royal Mail (and many other providers a) are poor and unreliable. Don’t get annoyed because a company does not want to go for cheap option, if you want to save money go for a company that does not care. Their customers will get the service they pay for. Oh, and feel free to read the evri thread here about service levels from companies than choose crappy couriers

 

[Homers Double]

It's the French trade tariff, it's there to offset the levels of arrogance.

 

[Tenkaykev]

Our Postie went to school with our eldest daughter who is 50 now 😮. Known him for years. He delivered a parcel last week and was popping round to the side gate as he didn't think we were in. Had a brief chat and he said that he was getting quite stressed. He told me that he had to deliver about 100-120 parcels in the run up to Christmas, and it was even busier now, as he had 140 to do that day. I'm assuming that the powers that be have signed new delivery contracts with third parties. The Posties usually park outside our house and I have noticed that they head out on their post rounds then come back and head out to deliver the parcels once the post is delivered.

 

[Beebo]

Whilst I don’t like the Royal Mail costs, I do think the privatisation has been bodged.
RM have to compete with other companies on a completely uneven playing field.
They have huge legacy responsibilities and costs which the new start ups don’t have. They can cherry pick the best stuff and leave the unprofitable stuff to RM.
Plus RM have a highly unionised work force who are used to working as traditional postmen.
It all adds up to what is essentially an impossible task for staff and management.

 

[yello]

Why?

Sorry, why what?

I thought the 'arrange pickup' bit was amusing, intentional or otherwise.

 

[markemark]

Sorry, why what?

I thought the 'arrange pickup' bit was amusing, intentional or otherwise.

To sort your own courier. It’s fairly standard. We don’t ship outside uk. Customers arrange their own couriers to collect directly from us.

 

[Chris S]

Why? It’s what we say too.

The OP is in France and they want him to collect from Germany.

 

[markemark]

View attachment 805361


The OP is in France and they want him to collect from Germany.

Yep. This week we had a customer in Japan. They arranged their own courier who picked up directly from us. Happens regularly.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

View attachment 805361


The OP is in France and they want him to collect from Germany.

Might only be a few metres away, then.

 

[Mike Ayling]

Thorn wanted 60 squids to send a seat post to Oz.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Some posties handle it well, others doing the same workload seem to find it impossible to cope. We have friends who both work for RM on each end of the spectrum.

If you think about it - 10 letters at £18 total, require many more stops than 1 parcel at £5.15. If you have to measure cost/efficiency then it must be quite hard to justify delivery by size/weight. I wouldn't be surprised if many little envelopes (1st class mail) eventually becomes 5x the cost of the equivalent weight of 1 parcel. As it may involve 5-10 times as many drops, walking, parking up etc