Couriers service declining

[casstony]

Through experience and from speaking to someone at a prominent courier business it seems that courier standards have dropped in the last couple of years. In my region at least TNT and Star Track are now considered to be the reliable carriers and the newer, cheaper entrants into the business are terribly unreliable. For example, Couriers Please may or may not even turn up to pick up a package and if they do the package may never be seen again. You really need to be careful sending anything of value with the cheaper couriers - reliability may be higher in metropolitan areas.

The courier Franchise you choose to use may have no bearing on the choice of carrier for your package. The following is a quote from an owner of a courier franchise (I don't want to identify them):

Anthony - I agree wholeheartedly with you

This is particular in the case in the regional areas that we look after

However, our competitors in this on line reseller freight area provide the exact same service

I had a customer from ___ who had used the competitor site - he selected the budget service and it was Couriers Please

The item was not collected after 4 days and he got a refund

He they went to our site – selected the budget service and once again got Couriers Please – the same thing happened – though I was able to get it collected within 3 days.

For your area the best carriers are TNT and Star track – however they are not the cheapest carriers and more often or not they do not come up as an option

The on line system is all about providing customers the cheapest priced options for your area – the size and weight of the product – plus where it is going to


I think I'll be using Australia Post for most packages in future.

[pjphilli]

Hi Tony
I am usually on the receiving end of packages via Aust Post or private couriers. There has been a lot of complaint recently about the "drop and run"
antics of many couriers when no attempt it made to see if anyone is home.
The worst case I have had so far was with Aust Post leaving an expensive
set of DVDs on my fence in the rain next to the letter box. Fortunately,
I live in a fairly "quiet" area.
Peter

[luka]

I also had not-so-great experience with Couriers Please. Few times (5?) I made express next-day guaranteed delivery order of electronics parts. Not a single time did Couriers Please delivered the next day while Toll always did.
I know it does not come close to not picking up or loosing packages but it is another warning sign.

[deanm]

Peter - I agree re "drop and run".
I've watched as various couriers pull up, put a 'collect from post office' card in my letter box & bugger off - no attempt whatsoever to see if anyone is home.
We're paying for a *delivery* service - not a 'collection' service.
If we don't lodge objections, the rush to the bottom will only continue...
Dean

[doppler]

Star Track is a part of Australia Post.

[el_draco]

A couple of years ago when I lived in the burbs, my neighbour was a licensed gun dealer. A courier delivered a package destined for him to his neighbour on the other side. Drop and run deal, despite the signature on delivery requirement. The package was picked up and opened by a child at that address and his parents found him mucking around with a pistol. Thankfully, no ammo. The gun dealer went ballistic, (sorry for the pun), and the delivery driver got charged by the police.

Service level in general is plummeting and many "couriers" don't seem interested in transporting anything over 30kg..


Saw this on the TNT site. Should cover telescope systems

Class C Unrestricted Warranty:
Cost is $6.00 (plus $0.60 GST) per $100 value.
We agree to deliver the goods (including glassware, fragile goods, porcelain, ceramics, enamel goods, computers, mobile phones, electrical goods and white goods) to the location identified in the consignment note in the same condition that goods were delivered to us. It covers freight from the time of pick-up to the time of delivery. If the goods are not so delivered, we will pay the value of the goods, or if the goods are damaged the reasonable cost of repair of the goods. Our liability to you is limited to the amount of the Extended Warranty elected on the consignment note.

[cfranks]

I live in (sort-of) rural South Australia and Friday last, I had a small package delivered by Toll at midday. It had been ordered from SmallParts in Queensland the previous day! Unsecured post would have cost $9, this cost $15.
No complaints here.

[deanm]

To be fair, I ordered a fairly large (but lightweight) package from Sydney early AM on Friday - it arrived today (Monday)!
OzPost.
Dean.

[The_bluester]

Gah, Couriers and Aus post. Bane of my life the lot of them.

Recent international parcel, 36 hours to cross the continental US more or less from coast to coast and then to Aus to be handed off to Auspost in Melbourne. Then a further 72 hours for delivery by Aus post from the Sunshine mail center to Kilmore (About 80KM)
Item from Queensland to Kilmore via parcel post, eight days, utterly useless tracking.
Item from a different part of Queensland to Kilmore, 9 days, tracking as good as they one above.
Item from Sydney to Kilmore, ten days, a tracking number was provided but it never updated from "Started"
Item from Campbellfield to Kilmore (45KM) seven days.

TNT usually deliver to our house, Star Track just take it to the post office with "Unable to deliver, handed off to Aus Post" as the tracking note, despite that they drive past out front gate to take it to the post office. Star Track are not actually part of the post office as mentioned above, Aus post sold them their fleet and have a wet lease back arrangement or similar, painting the damn trucks blue did not improve the service.

Aus post had a chance to make themselves the goto supplier for international freight from the US and maybe others to capitalise on the ebay explosion. They certainly missed that boat. I used their US shipto service once (Where they provide a US address for shipping to bypass sales restrictions) and it was the slowest and most expensive international shipping I have ever had. They mention on their website that they may repack items in order to reduce package size and freight charges. They repacked mine (A reducer/flattener) in it's original box, inside another bigger box, surrounded by flowpack media and charged me extra!

[Starman73]

Hi All
I have recently had need for Optus to send me packages of electronic goods, probably pretty expensive ones too luckily I did not have to buy them. I had 4 packages delivered, as far as I know by StarTrack. To their credit the delivery person did knock on the door called out but then quickly turned and ran. There is no way a reasonable person at home doing normal at home stuff can drop what they are doing and run to the front door, open it and be there before the delivery person "runs" off.

I did manage to catch them before they ran off on a couple of occasions but the delivery person was almost surprised that I was there. They attemped to hide the package under one of my son's toys on the verandah once. When I did manage to catch them they asked my name, well said to me are you Paul ........., no signing, no ID and left the package. On at least one occation the person who sent the package said that ID at least would be needed.

I guess in this day and age couriers are becomming the postmen of the past. The problem is they are not to the standard of Aust Post of old. (disclaimer:I have no association with Aust Post or know anyone who works for them and never had a problem with them not delivering something as I know some people have)

Paul.

[Tandum]

I get a lot of product delivered here by couriers please. I have one of their barcodes on the front door so they can drop, scan and run. Never had an issue.

However, emails exchanged with Auspost over a recent missing parcel from the UK included their rep telling me, "if you didn't want it to go missing you should have used EMS". I was gob smacked.

[Shano592]

Those replies go straight up the chain, when I get them from somewhere like Auspost.

A service industry with poor standards of service should not be protected by law. If they are so determined to wither and die, then let a better provider take their place.

Of course this won't happen, or a lot of public servants and bureaucrats would starve.

[Terry B]

I had a 135kg crate delivered from Melbourne to rural NSW recently for $85 with TNT. I think this is very good. No need to muck around with cheap couriers.

[kittenshark]

Been dealing with several couriers as a business... all of them are just as good/bad depending on the area. It really depends on on the delivery guy you get for your area. If you personally know your local delivery guy, it helps.
It's a necessary evil in the age of e-commerce.

[casstony]

Another dodgy experience, this time with Pack and Send. Steve dropped off an NP101is at a P&S depot in Adelaide, paying a premium price to have them pack and ship the scope on Monday. It sat there until Thursday when they hand-balled it to Couriers Please and it's in transit now.

When you take a package to the depot and use the personalised service they're supposed to employ one of the better couriers such as TNT. There's no point using the P&S personalised service if the package is going to be given straight to a cheap courier.

[casstony]

The np101 arrived ok courtesy of Televue's good quality case, but Steve paid a small fortune for P&S to pack the scope and it got a single layer of bubble wrap. I was expecting 'foam in place' or at least bubble wrap and a cardboard box.

From their website:
PACK & SEND are truly the experts when it comes to custom packaging and crating those fragile, large, awkward and valuable items

[sil]

ditto here, cant think of a single service I would recommend. they have all been equally bad for me and so unmemorable. when in doubt just Aust Post it, unless you collect stamps, AP only employs thieves.