topic Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping.. in Selling

Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jodles1987 — Tue, 23 May 2017 12:24:22 GMT

My International orders used to take 8-10 business days but the past month have taken over a month. Some have not even turned up. I have had to refund countless orders.

My items are shipped without tracking internationally for $2.95. If I pay for tracking it goes up to $28.50 which is not doable. I have called Australia Post a number of times but because I don't have tracking they will offer no assistance.

Anyone else notice International postage delays??

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

*tippy*toes* — Tue, 23 May 2017 12:39:04 GMT

Nope, because I stopped selling internationally because there were too many issues. It's not worth posting without tracking because buyers have cottoned onto being able to claim INR, knowing they will win.

It's not that Aust Post won't help, they can't. If there is no tracking, how are they supposed to know where the item is when you don't?

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

silence_electronics — Tue, 23 May 2017 13:05:45 GMT

I would absolutely never sell outside of Aus. The costs are crippling for the most basic slow services.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jodles1987 — Tue, 23 May 2017 13:36:46 GMT

I have been selling overseas on etsy Amazon and eBay for years. There is SO much more money to be made selling overseas than within Aus.

I can honestly say that in all the years I have been shipping small items overseas for $2.95 I have never had an issue. It always arrives in 8-10 business days. But just the past month there has been huge delays in international postal transit times. I am thinking there is an issue with an Aus Post sorting centre as some orders are still arriving on time while others have had long delays.

Definitely don't want to stop selling overseas as that is 90% of my business. Might have to look into overseas fulfilment..

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jodles1987 — Tue, 23 May 2017 13:38:28 GMT

Also I am not expecting them to track individual orders down, I would just like to know what the issue is and how long until it's resolved so I can continue sending overseas confidently again.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

porcelain_dolls_by_me — Tue, 23 May 2017 22:36:57 GMT

Normally overseas mail takes around 7-10 days to be delivered, but Canada is a notable exception and a couple of months is not unusual (for this reason we do not sell to that country)

HOWEVER, AusPost occasionally missort mail and send an item to the wrong destination country. When this happens the receiving country sends the item back to Australia and it starts its journey over again. In such instances delivery will take around 4-5 weeks.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

transport-posters — Tue, 23 May 2017 23:02:16 GMT

Yes, international shipping is taking a lot longer than usual. I understand that it goes from AP to the local national carrier for each country, so it may not be AP's fault overall.

I've had some bad experiences with Canada recently. Have had to re-send items for two customers. For the re-send I convinced them to add on tracking and/or signature.

Note that with parcels to the US you can usually lookup the customs declaration number on USPS to see that it was delivered.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

starwood2111 — Wed, 24 May 2017 04:17:46 GMT

Yes same here. Nearly all my USA and Canada orders send through April have had 'not received requests' opened ( and of course funds frozen). Some are resolving now but is seems to be taking a whole month for delivery. Luckily we have not had to refund as yet. Australia post tells me if you use economy airmail and pay $5 extra for a signature on delivery, they can track it internally at least. I open missing item requests with Aust post and stay in touch constantly with the customers. Oddly it seems Australia Post can track some economy deliveries and that has helped me in some cases at least. Open the requests with AP then follow up with them after a few days.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jellybirddesigns — Wed, 24 May 2017 04:48:35 GMT

I haven't noticed any major delays in international shipping personally, so fingers crossed.

Overseas sales account for about 40% of my volume, so it's definitely worth it for me. I don't send worldwide though, only a few select countries and in 13 years of international sales, only one item never turned up.

Before I ship anything overseas I always send a message to my buyer to tell them it will take between 10-15 business days, so they already have that higher figure in their heads if there are any delays.

I had a purchase come from Israel a few months ago which took 5 weeks to get to me, so who knows if the holdup was in Israel or here in Australia - hard to tell.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

starwood2111 — Wed, 24 May 2017 04:49:06 GMT

Further I don't know if its just a coincidence or not, but it seems always as soon as I received a missing item case my sales slow right down or stop altogther for 1-2 days. I always wonder if there is some link ??

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

starwood2111 — Wed, 24 May 2017 04:52:12 GMT

I have one missing delivery that was going to Israel. Aust Post informs me that there are very lengthy delays in Israeli post ..........

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jellybirddesigns — Wed, 24 May 2017 04:55:41 GMT

Hi Starwood, it's possible. I don't usually post to Israel only because of potential delays in their system (like Canada), which may result in me having to refund or receive a negative review.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

heihachi_73 — Wed, 24 May 2017 05:39:29 GMT

That's interesting, it costs me $8 to send games (to Europe), and $18 if they absolutely must go as a parcel due to the size or being over 250g.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jodles1987 — Wed, 24 May 2017 08:01:02 GMT

Pdme_dolls for years my orders have reached USA, UK and Europe in under 10 business days but since mid April it's like all my customers have just stopped receiving orders.

It's beyond a coincidence as the customers affected are in the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain. I have called Australian customs as well as HMRC and they have both assured me that this is a carrier issue not a customs issue.

After countless conversations to Aus Post no one wants to admit a problem but there clearly is one!

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jodles1987 — Wed, 24 May 2017 08:08:49 GMT

Transport-posters I didn't want to blame AP as they have been reliable for so long, but I am getting missing orders in the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain.

It's too coincidental that all these countries are suddenly having carrier problems since mid April. I feel like it must be Aus Post.

I sell in much larger volumes on Amazon and have had to refund and resend over 60 orders just this week. For the customers that have requested replacements rather than refunds I have paid the extra $28.50 to cover tracking for their new order as I don't want the same thing to happen. This has cost me thousands of dollars already. Do you mean if a customers order goes missing that you charge them extra for tracking the next time? I have always felt it was my responsibility to ensure the order reaches the customer safely, but interesting you say that, perhaps I am too harsh on myself.

You can look the customs declaration number up!? Wow after all these years I had no idea!! Wish I wrote down the numbers now!!

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jodles1987 — Wed, 24 May 2017 08:13:36 GMT

Starwood2111 you are the first person who seems to be experiencing similar problems to me!!! What is going on!?

As my orders are sent with $2.95 stamps there is unfortunately no way of tracking the at all 😞 It goes up to $28.50 if I want to track or sig on delivery which is not possible with the value of my items.

Are you continuing to send overseas? My complaints have got so bad that I have had to shut down everything!

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jodles1987 — Wed, 24 May 2017 08:16:12 GMT

Cushion covers I always say 10-15 business days too but these orders are taking 30+ business days and some are not arriving at all.

Glad to hear it hasn't affected you. Hope it stays that way!

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

jodles1987 — Wed, 24 May 2017 08:18:58 GMT

Starwood that's no coincidence. Selling platforms such as EBay, Amazon etc take into account seller performance and reliability in their algorithm.

A seller who has better feedback, no cases against them etc will have listings that naturally show higher in the algorithm and then naturally are more visible to customers.

Open cases will affect your placement.

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

ourphonecase — Wed, 24 May 2017 15:05:32 GMT

Same boat as you jodles and in fact my Amazon defect has gone over 1% which puts my account at risk so I had to change my handling time to over 10 days to give a much longer buffer.... Also I just started filling out those customs declaration forms and bringing it to the post office everyday for the last few weeks to see if it improves the situation or not . Wasn't doing the forms before as they seemed to be fine...

So I am guessing something has changed internationally (most from the US)

Re: Anyone else having issues with Australia Post? Particularly international shipping..

starwood2111 — Thu, 25 May 2017 00:16:27 GMT

Jodies, it seems anything I posted in the second half of April is where the problem seems to be. I am continuing to ship but paying the $5 extra for a signature. Some of my cases have now resolved and I haven't had any new ones in the last 2 days so hopefully its getting better.

As I said open missing delivery report with AP and then at least you get something to follow up with. They often can't help much but at least they are trying to help when I call