topic Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers in Buying

Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

missbelz15 — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 21:49:19 GMT

What if anything can be done to encourage sellers who use cheap but atrocious couriers like CouriersPlease and Aramex (previously Fastway) to use more reliable couriers even if they cost a bit more ?

The last 4 items I bought were returned to the seller supposedly because supposedly they could not be delivered despite the fact i have a shop which is open 8.5 hours a day . Then I have to go through the time wasting process of organising a refund and trying a different seller .

It always seems to be Fastway or CouriersPlease who are involved when these problems occur.

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

sugar249 — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 21:54:58 GMT

You may be open 8.5 hours, but that doesnt mean you are open when the courier comes, at the moment we are getting deliveries anytime up till 7 at night.

Ask the seller who they use.

You can contact the seller before buying and ask them if they will use a different courier, I use oz post, but have had a couple ask me to send via couriers please.

use a different seller

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

papermoon.lady — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 22:25:48 GMT

If a parcel has a tracking and you see that it is on board for delivery, maybe you can stay in the shop a bit longer (if this is allowed), or maybe you can indicate your home address if there is somebody else at hope who can receive the parcels.

At the moment most couriers (including the expensive ones) deliver until late.

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

sugar249 — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 22:31:22 GMT

You asked the same question 2 and a half years ago,

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Buying/How-can-we-get-eBay-sellers-to-stop-using-the-atrocious/td-p/2216890

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

zanadoo_56 — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:11:29 GMT

I don't think it is possible to get sellers to understand Sendle, Couriers Please and Fastway are garbage when it comes to deliveries. They book the courier service, the item is picked up efficiently and they think the company is brilliant. Sigh.

I last had this issue with a seller who insisted on using Sendle 'as she had no end of issues with Aust Post'. So my item got sent using Sendle....who passed it on to Couriers Please in my location......and then nothing happened. I contacted the courier company and the seller. The couriers (after some prodding) agreed to look for the parcel (which was God knows where at their depot for weeks). The seller told me 'she had never had any trouble with Sendle before'.....and it turns out she also had no idea whoever picked up the parcel was not necessarily the couriers that deliver it.

Finally the parcel was located and was (slowly) on its way to me. In the meantime the seller had seen the tracking and also contacted the company. They told her (and I quote!!) 'The parcel was handed over to Aust Post for delivery'. Of course it wasn't!! Sendle and AP are in direct competition and have made complaints against each other.

After more conversations with the Seller after my purchase finally arrived, she told me AP was 'terrible' because of parcels lost once they left Oz and arrived overseas. I pointed out that was hardly AP's fault but likely the postal/customs/whatever services in the respective countries. I also told her my parcel had a Couriers Please label on it (big surprise.....not) so the company lied to her that AP were at fault for its slow delivery.

I can only hope her eyes were opened to the true state of certain couriers in Oz. One company at least certainly helped my opinion of them by deliberately lying to the seller that they had given the parcel to Aust Post. It seems on many levels they are not the smartest knives in the block.

Oh, and a recent purchase (not eBay) was sent by Couriers Please - a big bulky padded bag of 4 boxed (but thankfully not breakable) items which the delivery person somehow managed to fold over and cram into my letterbox so the letterbox lid wouldn't close properly. It was only a short walk to my safe drop spot from my letterbox but apparently he couldn't be bothered. Two boxes were crushed but the contents were OK thank goodness. Couriers Please lately have been worse than Fastway....and that's saying something.

All any buyer can do is notify the seller and hope they finally see the light, and avoid these dodgy companies. At the very least Sellers should state they use couriers instead of Aust Post. 'Standard Post' is NOT couriers!

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

missbelz15 — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:14:25 GMT

Your point being ????? It is getting worse not better>

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

missbelz15 — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:15:58 GMT

Unfortunately I have a business to run which means I don't have time to sit in front of my keyboard all day checking tracking

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

sugar249 — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:16:18 GMT

@missbelz15 wrote:
Your point being ????? It is getting worse not better>

People gave you advise then, you obviously didnt take any of it

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

missbelz15 — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:17:46 GMT

To my mind it is up to the couriers to come to a business address when they are likely to be open not for me to change my hours to pander to these cretins

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

sugar249 — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:21:30 GMT

@missbelz15 wrote:
To my mind it is up to the couriers to come to a business address when they are likely to be open not for me to change my hours to pander to these cretins

Thats like me saying that you should be open at midnight when I want to come and purchase from your business.

Sounds like you expect the world to revolve around you

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

missbelz15 — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:23:53 GMT

Yes couriersplease are probably now worse than fastway . I tried to send something with them myself and 2 weeks later it still hadn't been collected so I used Australia Post instead . Never got a refund of course.

Surely sellers must get sick of giving refunds and copping bad feedback because they have used useless couriers.

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

sugar249 — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:30:59 GMT

PS. it would also be a good idea leaving positive feedback for bad sellers, it doesnt help other buyers, and just gives the seller a better feedback score

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

imastawka — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 23:01:08 GMT

I've run a business - and still am.

Sugar was referring to this breach of ebay policy - left for a buyer

A TROUBLE MAKING, TIMEWASTING, NON COMMUNICATING NON PAYING INTERNET CLOWN EMBOLDENED BY EBAY POLICY OF NOT ALLOWING NEGATIVE FEEDBACK FOR BUYERS

If the buyer reports it you could get a slap.

Why give them a positive dot to add to their score? Better to give them nothing.

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

yanni_tammy — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 23:51:45 GMT

I agree with you missbelz15.

Couriers should not return as undeliverable package that they sort to deliver outside of normal business hours. They should in those circumstances attempt delivery again. It is unreasonable to expect people to hang around the office on the chance that a courier my arrive unless pre-agreed.

Ebay should require that sellers indicate the delivery company they use in their listing. Couriers are not all the same and so this differentiation indicates a difference in service being provided and therefore it impacts price/value being offered. Not to list the courier, provides sellers the opportunity to "bait and switch" since buyers expect a reasonable service.

It should not be an additional burden on buyers to work out the courier of the seller and create additional delays to their buying process. To put the burden on the buyers is relying on them taking a risk in order to buy, out of an attempt not to spend additional time working out the details. Any seller employing this attitude and tactic is not genuine and should not be provided an opportunity to sell via Ebay.

Ebay need to step up to the plate and ensure transparency in what is being offered by sellers.

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

zanadoo_56 — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 00:40:18 GMT

It occurred to me eBay should have an extra posting option which might at least make sellers consider the effect on their feedback ratings.

There's STANDARD POST (ie Australia Post)

and then they could add this option:

SUBSTANDARD POST (couriers)

😀

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

sugar249 — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 01:22:03 GMT

@yanni_tammy wrote:
I agree with you missbelz15.

Couriers should not return as undeliverable package that they sort to deliver outside of normal business hours. They should in those circumstances attempt delivery again. It is unreasonable to expect people to hang around the office on the chance that a courier my arrive unless pre-agreed.

Ebay should require that sellers indicate the delivery company they use in their listing. Couriers are not all the same and so this differentiation indicates a difference in service being provided and therefore it impacts price/value being offered. Not to list the courier, provides sellers the opportunity to "bait and switch" since buyers expect a reasonable service.

It should not be an additional burden on buyers to work out the courier of the seller and create additional delays to their buying process. To put the burden on the buyers is relying on them taking a risk in order to buy, out of an attempt not to spend additional time working out the details. Any seller employing this attitude and tactic is not genuine and should not be provided an opportunity to sell via Ebay.

Ebay need to step up to the plate and ensure transparency in what is being offered by sellers.

This whole argument is a bit of a joke really, how many non Ebay sellers do you ask to tell you which courier they are using, do you not buy from them for the same reason.

I have about 7 parcels coming this week, well I hope today anyhow, and all bar one is not AP, and you don't find out until the seller sends through tracking details.

The majority of non Ebay online sellers I have dealt with don't use AP, and have the same issues, but hey lets blame Ebay for the wows of the world.

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

digital*ghost — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 01:36:05 GMT

@yanni_tammy wrote:

Ebay should require that sellers indicate the delivery company they use in their listing.

For the most part, they do.

There are 41 domestic services that sellers have to select from when listing an item, only 3 of those don't specify a carrier (standard parcel delivery, express parcel delivery and freight).

Many of these just display as "standard postage" in a listing but there's a little "see details" link next to that which will show the selected service / carrier if one of the aforementioned generic options hasn't been selected - here's an example.

That aside, it's all very well and good for people to sit here and say "ebay should do this, sellers should do that, couriers shouldn't do whatever", and have those things all cater to the specific preferences of someone, but the thing I notice is that no one ever thinks about why it isn't done that way, or why sellers / ebay / couriers don't operate according to they way one person thinks they should, or how it can all be implemented and what effect that will have on other things - it's always "I would like it to be this way, therefore it should be that way".

The vast majority of sellers do not deliberately inconvenience their buyers, or persist in using sub-standard services to ensure fewer and fewer people want to buy from them over time. This is like the complete opposite of the goal of most people in business.

Most sellers using the generic options do so because it provides some other more important convenience to the majority of their buyers, like the ability to provide automatic postage discounts and the like. Most sellers use the tools they have to address pain points - without question, sorting out postage rate issues on every single order is a far bigger pain point for sellers than the occasional buyer frustrated by the service provided by a carrier.

Buying online is a two-way system, wanting to only ever be a passive participant but still have every single need and expectation met 100% of the time is unrealistic.

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

sugar249 — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 01:43:55 GMT

@digital*ghost wrote:

The vast majority of sellers do not deliberately inconvenience their buyers, or persist in using sub-standard services to ensure fewer and fewer people want to buy from them over time. This is like the complete opposite of the goal of most people in business.

This is a very valid point, and if a seller had consistent issues with one particular courier they would stop using them, because it reflects badly on the sellers reputation, plus could cost them $'s.

The problem here is that you only hear from the handful of complainers, who may have had an issue, you don't get a post every day from all of the successful parcels delivered by these so called bad delivery companies.

I Just received 3 on time, on schedule, efficient delivery's from one of the so called ''cheap but atrocious couriers'' (OPS words), yet I am still waiting after about 3, 4 and 6 weeks respectively from the one everyone advocates'. Maybe I should start a thread everytime that one fails to deliver on time, or stuffs up.

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

e_purchasing — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 01:46:05 GMT

For the most part a courier looks for the business name when they are in a business zone.

If you have not provided the business name in your checkout details and your shop does not clearly display the business name, you run the risk of them turning around and returning the package.

Unfortunately the courier's get a small slice of the delivery fee and can't be hanging around trying to decipher or locate shops if the information is not clear as day

Re: Cheap but highly unreliable couriers

sugar249 — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 05:00:30 GMT

@e_purchasing wrote:

If you have not provided the business name in your checkout details and your shop does not clearly display the business name, you run the risk of them turning around and returning the package.

And half of the retail stores dont have street numbers as well.