Australia Post recently very slow at delivering my items. Anyone else?

[ourphonecase]

I've been getting alot of complaints from buyers that their item has not arrive at their expected times and as a result I am getting punished for it. I ship my items within 1 day (at letter rate, so no tracking).

I suspect something has caused the delay (also noticing patterns that people in the NSW are more likely not to get their items on time).

Anyone else having this issue as well? It really does suck that I have no control on how to speed up the delivery process, but I do wish eBay takes it into account for such delays (better communication between Aus-Post and eBay.au for matter).

[clarry100]

Most of our stuff goes out by large letter untracked as well.

When this new Aust Post slow delivery system came into being earlier in the year we extended our handling time out from same day to 3-days. This was because the ebay estimated delivery dates are very optimistic, even as much as unreasonable.

Doing this has combatted these late delivery defects very well.

Since it started we have not had a single late delivery point recorded against us. In fact what it did was to see an increase in the number of positive feedback comments about how fast our delivery is. We still mail out on the same day we receive an order as we always did.

The only down side we can see is that we no longer have the little premium service badge displayed on our listings, but we did not notice any negative impact on sales that we could attribute to doing this.

So I would recommend you think about doing this too.

[justkidzbiz]

I am having similar problems with parcels. Some fm vic to nsw take maybe 3 days, the. Local metro via to vic take over a week.

i track everything on Aust post app and find around 80% are not delivered by APs estimated delivery date.

I increased my handling time to avoid these probs.

[clarry100]

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@justkidzbiz wrote:

I am having similar problems with parcels. Some fm vic to nsw take maybe 3 days, the. Local metro via to vic take over a week.

i track everything on Aust post app and find around 80% are not delivered by APs estimated delivery date.

I increased my handling time to avoid these probs.

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With tracked parcels.... as long as you have a lodgement scan event (lodged over the counter) inside your stated handling then any of these late delivery will be easily removed by ebay. It doesnt matter how long after their estimated delivery date it actually gets delivered.

If their system was working correctly they should be able to automatically see the Aust Post tracking system and your buyers should not even be asked the late delivery question at all. But of course their clever system is not working too well.

So you will need to call them to have these ones removed.

[*tippy*toes*]

Mine have all be arriving before the first estimate date, but I blew my handling time out to 5 days and still post same or next day most of the time. Like Clarry, I have been getting lots of feedback from buyers saying how pleased they are it arrived before the earliest estimate date.

However......Friday a week ago I received an order from a seller I'd bought from a few times. I'd ordered sterile saline and they accidentally sent sterile water. As the boxes are almost identical, it was an easy mistake to make. I sent them a message saying I'd return it on the Monday for exchange. They resent on the Monday, even though they hadn't received the wrong one back yet. Tracking showed that they were posted within an hour of each other.

It was going from central NSW to northern NSW. My tracking showed that it arrived to them on Wednesday. I received mine yesterday. It went from Tweed Heads to Chullora, then headed north to Taree where it spent 2 days. Then it went back to Chullora, then another quick zap up to Taree, then back to Chullora and then here.

So, for untracked stuff, it's anyone's guess which route it takes and how many times it ping pongs between different sorting centres. As suggested, increase  your handling time to compensate. Very few buyers check what the handling time is.

[beakychew]

About half my shipping is at letter rate.

I always use a Prioroty sticker to make sure items arrive in good time--I have handling time of 1 day, and get excellent feedback about delivery times.

Since Priority was introduced for letters, it seems to be as fast or faster than old letter mail. Letters wihout a Priority sticker are slower (sometimes much slower) than old letter mail.

The problem is, Ebay's system/interface with Australia Post doesn't distinguish between Priority and non-Priority posted letters. The estimates given on Ebay are based on the old pre-Priority times, and are therefore a bit longer than Priority and too short for non-Priority mail.

The AP estimates also haven't been updated since 'local mail' was removed--local letters used to be collected separately, sorted locally, and sent out with the postie's/ Now they go to the state sorting centre like all other mail, and then back again. But the buyer is likely to be told that the letter will take 1-2 days. Wrong!

[4green2000]

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@ourphonecase wrote:

I've been getting alot of complaints from buyers that their item has not arrive at their expected times and as a result I am getting punished for it. I ship my items within 1 day (at letter rate, so no tracking).

I suspect something has caused the delay (also noticing patterns that people in the NSW are more likely not to get their items on time).

Anyone else having this issue as well? It really does suck that I have no control on how to speed up the delivery process, but I do wish eBay takes it into account for such delays (better communication between Aus-Post and eBay.au for matter).

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i have bought a whole pile of stuff last week (all diff sellers) and 4 of the items should of been here today wednesday according to greedbays "unrealistic estimates" i dont take notice of their s**t estimate dates...ill give the items that should of been here by now, till say tuesday..nothing by tuesday, then i might ask but i dont punish sellers cause im a realistic buyer... have noticed it now takes longer for AU post to deliver for some reason..AU post price rise = longer delivery times. go figure

[clarry100]

Yes that's how it advertised back in January when they did this price rise.

To get the same delivery times as existed before the price rise you have to put an extra 50-cents priority mail sticker on the envelope.

We had one large letter going to suburban Perth (from us in Caboolture) a little while back where the postcode was outside the express network so not even next business day delivery for express.

So we put a priority sticker on it and it arrived before 48-hours after we dropped it into our local red street box. The buyer was impressed and so were we.

[montrealist]

I've sent a parcel from Canada, tracked and expess, it's been over three weeks and the recipient in Brisbane still hasn't received it. It took 7 days to get from Montreal to Australia, and we're now on 15 days of it bouncing around in Australia. I don't think I'll be shipping to Australia anymore. It's too bad, and I hope Australians are successful in pressuring whoever mismanages their postal system to that it improves drastically. What a national embarrassment, that's how I'd feel if I were Australian.

[brerrabbit585]

What you've described does happen but it's definitely not the norm. If you want to talk about embarrassment, Canada Post is much more of a disgrace than Australia Post and has been as long as I've had anything to do with it, which is at least 12 years!