[OT] Has any other country solved the online shopping/delivery problem?

[Tim Watts]

Round here, online shopping was reasonably stable - most senders used Royal Mail, Parcelforce, UPS or one of a couple of other reasonable couriers.

All of a sudden every bugger seems to be using Yodel -

Yodel like to come at completely random times, and not do anything remotely sensible when I'm at work like leave the sodding thing with a neighbour (most other couriers do).

One day I was in all day bar going out for about 15 minutes and the buggers came right then.

After 3 goes they give up and suggest might like to do a 50 mile round trip to Maidstone and collect it in person (erm, no I don't think so!).

I have a package stuck at Maidstone and nearly missed another delivery 3 weeks back -

I'm checking out on uk.l.m if this scenario allows for raising a credit card dispute (should talking to the sender fail).

But it occurs to me that we as a country are degenerating into a shambolic mishmash of random courier companies who don't like communicating with customers (I had to use the "Book a collection" option to even get a human, yay to me...) and like having sparse depots.

It's not even like I am in the Brecons or the Shetland Isles... Sunny Sussex, near to two main towns (Hastings and Tunbridge Wells, either of which would be acceptible to drive to)

Has no one thought it might be a good idea to run a national registrar of delivery preferences so you could sign up once and say "Yes, leave it with a neighbour" or "Hide it in the porch" or "Leave it with a local collection place".

I get the feeling this is something that is not going to happen unless the government mandates it. Sellers will choose the cheapest crappiest courier until they get enough "no delivery" disputes to re-evaulate.

This is the one problem Royal Mail solves very well - they know their customers better and they have a good distrubution of collection offices - why do we have to have all these other sodding outfits doing domestic deliveries? It can hardly be "green" either to have a dozen other vans driving through my village dropping off a couple of parcels when RM send a single red van full of nothing but local post.

...

[Tim Watts]

On Wednesday 16 October 2013 19:49 charles wrote in uk.d-i-y:

or going to Hell in a Handbasket

(WTF does that mean anyway?)

[charles]

It's called Freedom of Choice (or Capitalism) or ....?

[newshound]

I don't think I have ever had a problem with Yodel here in Gloucestershire. It's a bit random whether Royal Mail deliver if I am out, or take stuff back to the depot (luckily not too far away). The ParcelForce (collect from Post Office) service isn't too bad.

I've had to make 25 mile round trips to collect stuff from City Link though.

[Sam Plusnet]

It means people don't know what a handcart is.

[Andy Burns]

DPD/Interlink are quite good, if the seller passes your mobile number to them, they text you to say there's a parcel due tomorrow, and let you send a single digit SMS to delay it for one or two days, or deliver to a neighbour, then on the delivery day they text you with a 1 hour timeslot.

If Royal Mail fail to deliver they leave a card and take the parcel back to the sorting office a few miles away, where parking is impossible at popular times, and is only open past office hours one day a week, and now has a sign at the gate saying "no customer parking" (which the posties say to ignore).

Parcel Force have a better idea, they take it to the local post office which is within walking distance.

[Tim Watts]

On Wednesday 16 October 2013 19:58 Andy Burns wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Yes - DPD - that's one of our regulars. They are pretty good too.

This of course would/should be the sensible fallback for everyone.

[Dave Liquorice]

50 miles is at least 20 miles short of a round trip into Carlisle where *some* couriers have their depots. Newcastle is over 100 round trip...

Neighbours? Nearest is 1/2 a mile away and not visible from here. Fortunately there is nearly always someone in.

RM already deliver an awful lot of stuff that is sent by other services, generally only letters though. Our little Postie van is quite full already when it leaves the delivery office, I'm not sure it would have room for half a dozen decent sized parcels and it would slow the round down considerably. Less than 30 seconds to hop out pop the letters through the door and hop back in. With parcel, get out open back find parcel, take to door (with letters), get an answer, get signature get back in, couple of minutes or more?

In urban areas and towns the Postie walks carrying the mail or some times has a trolley. A van might go around and drop off sections of the round in the small lockup boxes, no real capabilty to handle parcels.

[chris French]

Yes, that works well for me, I suspect that they will all go that way.

Well it all depends on your local situation. Our sorting/delivery office is effectively the post office over the road (we live in a village of about a 1000 odd properties). so non delivered Royal Mail stuff goes back there. And since they converted it to one of these counters attached to the main shop counter, and the same staff do both, it means that when ever the shop is open the post office is as well :-) - currently 6am to 10pm. Parcelforce how ever, don't use them anymore, cos not so much secure storage for parcels. So it goes to nearest suitable PO which is 6 miles away.

fortunately, we are around quite a bit in the day, so can arrange for redelivery easily enough, and PF pretty much always come here early on. (they will leave stuff out of the way, but not everything can be)

[Scott M]

I've snipped those two because, if any government had half a clue about anything, particularly running RM, they'd have beaten Royal Mail around the head about 8-10 years ago and pointed out that delivering small parcels was going to be The Next Big Thing. Instead RM seem to have whinged on about letters and junk mail and then ended up in a situation where they're delivering all that Franked stuff that's labelled up as being handled by someone else (I forget who they are.)

It's only very recently that RM have noticed that small parcels should be more important to them (if not the core activity), before now they'd effectively done all they could to avoid handling the damn things and this is where Yodal seems to have slipped in.

Now they're selling off RM I am incandescent at the thought of what will happen next. Stamps'll go up and deliveries will become twice weekly I expect (and only half in jest.)

In closing: There was a bloke on local radio the other day who sold calendars. To post around the UK was £5, yet to post to France was £3...

[Tim+]

Probably means you've got it wrong. ;-)

Tim

[Tim+]

No they're not, they're fecking brilliant! ;-)

Tim

[mike]

I got a text from them the other day saying a parcel would arrive between 1

1.17 and 12.17.

I happened to be in the porch when the van arrived at 11.13 so I opened the door and stood there expectantly. Driver got the parcel out of the back o f the van then went and stood by the cab, trying to look busy. Finally tur ns round and walks over to me at 11.17 looking very sheepish.

"Sorry, mate. I'm not allowed to deliver early."

[Tim Streater]

Here is one reason people are fed up with RM:

[Tim Watts]

On Wednesday 16 October 2013 22:55 mike wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Never stops Ocado - though they are obliged to ring first and I am free to say no and make them wait (only did that once - right in the middle of supper).

[Tim Watts]

On Wednesday 16 October 2013 22:53 Tim+ wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Ahha..

[Tim Watts]

On Wednesday 16 October 2013 22:53 Tim+ wrote in uk.d-i-y:

And the folk in uk.l.m say that I can invoke the DSR within 7 days of delivery *and prior to delivery* In the latter case, I would not be liable for return costs (because I cannot actually return the items).

I see if Yodel sort themselves out tomorrow - otherwise the above seems like a good idea...

[John Rumm]

Perhaps you need to build a delivery shed, with a trap door on the front.

[Bob Eager]

And you can now track the lorry on a map.

[SteveW]

The obvious (to me at least) is for all the couriers and the Royal Mail to do a deal with the local Co-Op, Spar or whatever - generally close by and open 7:00 'til 22:00.

SteveW