Thread: Couriers instead of Aust post

I've just sent a 10kg parcel from Laidley 4341 to Canberra. Customer organised & paid Sendle/Fastway to pick up from me, price I believe was $18, a 5kg OzPost satchel costs almost that much. Customer says Sendle is very competitive between well populated areas but not so much in the bush, not too many surprises there. YMMV.

During the week to waste a bit of time I went on to Ebay and looked at what was offering in the way of Electric Generators. I chose a Diesel powered one which seemed to be of Chinese origin and supplied by a number of different Australian suppliers. While the price differs only about $20 the price of delivery was one BIG surprise. The machine is around $1200 mark while the freight went from "free" to $450!!!. The "free" price was offered by a crowd in WA, but they added what ever the freight cost into the "buy now" price. A Sydney based crowd wanted the $450 for freight to Tamworth.
Subsequently I decided to look around locally to see what is offered.
On one time I bought from Ebay 4 lengths of down grade Uni Strut 6 mts long. They arrived after I spent $60 freight from Sydney. The transport crowd went from Sydney to Tamworth then over to Coffs Harbour, then of course returned to Sydney. It seemed to be a "round the world for sixpence" drive.

Originally Posted by bob ward

I've just sent a 10kg parcel from Laidley 4341 to Canberra. Customer organised & paid Sendle/Fastway to pick up from me, price I believe was $18, a 5kg OzPost satchel costs almost that much. Customer says Sendle is very competitive between well populated areas but not so much in the bush, not too many surprises there. YMMV.

Every afternoon an Australia Post truck is backed into Fastway at Wollongong to pick up a lot of what they have received that day and it is delivered within the AP parcel system. I used to drive that truck.

Trouble I find with couriers is that somebody gotta be at the address to receive.
I use Oz post all the time when-ever the item is small/light enough for them. I've got a P.O. Box so they hold the bigger items out back for a time. Recently got a Bison chuck ex USA that apparently went over weight though the Oz post lass just said to make sure the sender checks the weight next time. I forgot to ask what that weight were though I normally just let the sender work out how best to deliver.

USPS flat rate box international weight limits is 20lb. (USPS domestic weight limit is 40lb)

AU post weight limits is 20kg.

Years ago I had a US seller send me a flat rate box with nearly 20kg in it once. Came through no problems

I know lots of people like to complain about AU post, but they are the only true national delivery company in Australia. No courier in the country other then AU post will deliver goods to my door (or mail box actually)

I recently had to order some very critical parts , the only place that had them in stock was in Perth WA.
Order placed 2-30 pm Friday , I had a phone call from the TNT driver before 12-30 Sunday .

That is what I call service , site was back up and running by 4-00pm .

Michael

Anything I have ever gotten from WA always arrives much quicker than from NSW or Victoria for some reason.

Does anyone happen to know where the local courier sorting centre is in Australia? It seems a lot of my parcels have been getting stuck here recently and I am not getting them. These are the things I order from China or Hong Kong. Never had any issues before, but I have had about 5 items like this so far this year. Still have not received. Just wondering who I would contact about this, Auspost is telling me it has nothing to do with them. The sellers have been pretty good with it and will refund my money, but I wan't the items and when they arrive I will be paying the seller back as I don't think it is there fault.

Item being handed over to the local courier, tracking ended, estimated delivery : 7-15 days.
Jan-06-17, 07:15 AM, Local courier sorting centre,AUSTRALIA
Flight landed to destination.
Jan-06-17, 05:15 AM, Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport, AUSTRALIA
Flight dispatched;destination: AUSTRALIA; Flight #F128
Jan-02-17, 20:15 PM, Chek Lap Kok International Airport, Hong Kong

I have an identical problem at the moment. The Tracker said the article loaded in China-Arrived Kingford Smith-then to distribution.......all this happened within 5 days of placing the order. At the end of "Expected Delivery Date", which was 4 weeks on, I asked a couple of questions, the seller asked to give it more time, I did (a week), then asked again, he gave me a refund. I would have liked the article. He also asked to re-emberse him if the thing arrived. OK we are only talking $6 which is really nothing BUT....where do these articles end up???

Has Australia Post found its just too hard to process these parcels and bins them? Where do we go from here?

Originally Posted by chambezio

I have an identical problem at the moment. The Tracker said the article loaded in China-Arrived Kingford Smith-then to distribution.......all this happened within 5 days of placing the order. At the end of "Expected Delivery Date", which was 4 weeks on, I asked a couple of questions, the seller asked to give it more time, I did (a week), then asked again, he gave me a refund. I would have liked the article. He also asked to re-emberse him if the thing arrived. OK we are only talking $6 which is really nothing BUT....where do these articles end up???

Has Australia Post found its just too hard to process these parcels and bins them? Where do we go from here?

The parcels could be stolen or maybe someone ran over them and destroyed them. Maybe it is being used to prop up a broken table in the crib room.

I am currently waiting on a parcel from UPS. It came from Europe via the US in about four days. Arrived in Sydney yesterday and their expected delivery date is next Monday. How do they work that out? Not even AU post is that slow.

No Basically there is no contact number or anything and I have no hope in receiving what I ordered? Someone needs to be responsible.

Originally Posted by .RC.

The parcels could be stolen or maybe someone ran over them and destroyed them. Maybe it is being used to prop up a broken table in the crib room.

I am currently waiting on a parcel from UPS. It came from Europe via the US in about four days. Arrived in Sydney yesterday and their expected delivery date is next Monday. How do they work that out? Not even AU post is that slow.

The courier company is unable to control customs clearance so they build in a margin for hold-ups in Customs. As for Auspost not being 'that slow', sometimes they are!

Originally Posted by aldav

As for Auspost not being 'that slow', sometimes they are!

Yep, waiting on a delivery as we speak. Posted sydney 8 days ago now. Delivery NQ. Tracking says "in transit" FFS its only 2 days by myself

Ladies and gentelmen, there is one thing you all must understand ....... all the freight companies are deliberately reducing service levels.

I have one friend who is just furious about this.

Standard Australia post letters and small parcels in general used to take 1 or 2 days pretty much to most places in the country ...... a very large portion of the volume used to arrive next day.
Same thing with most of the small freight carried by most of the usual suspects ..... 2 to 3 days quoted, most of it arriving overnight.

Well the freight companies have decided ( individually or as a conspiracy) that this is not good people are getting next day delivery and not paying for it ...... so it does not matter which freight company you use ..... if you want it fast, they have made sure you pay for it ...... otherwise they will take their own sweet time to get it to you. .... This is in major centres ..... small towns well they don't give a about you because there is insufficient business volume to make money.

NOW ... another problem with this ...... because they are not transfering all freight as directly and immediately as possible stuff gets mis-handled.

It's not just the freight companies .... the dispatchers have an oar in this too ...... all of the large dispatchers and freight companies are cutting staff and employing labour hire staff that are not permanent in the facility ...... so there are issues that arise because of that.

Yeh they are cutting call centre staff ...... they simply do not want to talk to you .... so many con notes and address labels that once carried prominent contact numbers do not ...... if you do actually find a contact number .... regardless of the time of day you WILL be on hold long enough to hear recorded messages telling you that there is an on line facility that is soo much better ..... they hope you will go away.

It's not good ... but what do you do.

cheers

Got a text from Aust Post early today to tell me that a parcel which left Victoria over a week ago will be here tomorrow.

What is that supposed to do , these people do not get the idea of tracking of items at all.

Why should I have to set up an account and login to find out where a parcel is , and the crap about the parcel being the property of the sender is a load of bulldust as 99% of sellers will not dispatch an item until payment is cleared into their account , so legal title has passed to the purchaser.

The continual ducking and diving by this antique "service " is why i prefer to pay extra and have a courier deliver my parts/

Michael