[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.