Change in AusPost red box collection times

[porcelain_dolls_by_me]

Hearing that as from mid November AusPost will change from an evening clearance (in our case 6pm) of the street red boxes to a midday clearance.  The box will no longer be cleared by a dedicated AusPost van, rather by your local postie.

At the moment, any orders we receive before 5:30pm are placed into the mail box that day thereby ensuring (well, assisting) prompt delivery.

In essence this change means that most of our sales will be mailed/delivered one day later than at present.

AusPost again claim that diminishing volumes of snail mail mean they need to cut costs by reducing services.  Seems like an echo of the story spun by banks as their excuse for closing branches - an endless cycle.  Reduce services so less people can use the service and then claim this reduced patronage as an excuses to further reduce services.

[twyngwyn]

me too....but, postboxes directly outside P.Os will be later....I am in S.A.

[davewil1964]

My local red box is outside my local LPO/newsagent and it is showing a notice of midday.

But, given I have a day job, anything I sell after 9pm doesn't get posted until the morning of the second day. It won't affect me, luckily.

[love_of_cars]

Yeah, my local post box has had a sign up on it for weeks with this proposed change coming.

I think they've been doing it for a few years anyway, I mean how can a van be at every single post box at 6 pm every day? I believe they started collecting at something like 4 pm and collect for a few hours in a single council area or something, since they have to get through peak hour suburban traffic and all.

My reasoning is that I've often gone to post a parcel in a letterbox at 5 pm, even 4:30 pm and I hear the unmistakable clang of it hitting the metal floor of an empty box.

[joztamps]

Our street post box Sunday clearance time was brought forward from 6pm to 3pm earlier this year, with weekdays remaining at 6pm.

The notice on the box now says that weekday times are changing from 6pm to midday, but says nothing about Sunday; I infer that Sunday collections may be gone.

Collections from the post box at the Post Office are also being brought forward from 6pm to 5pm.

[brerrabbit585]

I think our postmaster will still wander out to the red box just before 5 o'clock and check it so that he can put everything on the truck when it comes through about 10 past 5.

[joztamps]

There's always a silver lining for somebody, though.

The lady who pops the office mail into the box on her way home will now get to knock off half an hour earlier if they want to get it out that day.

[heihachi_73]

A lot of the postboxes around here have sheets on them saying they're changing the clearing time from 6PM to 5PM. Pretty sad that even in city and metro areas they are cutting back.

It's also pretty sad that the Australia Post bean-counters still only consider mail to be nothing more than paper letters and that eBay and the like doesn't exist whatsoever. Good thing Australia Post hasn't found a way to physically stop items from being placed in the boxes after they've been emptied. Of course, if that happened then AP would complain that no-one is using the postboxes and they would start removing them en masse just like the big four banks did (and are still doing) with their free-to-use ATMs.

My local post office (a five minute walk) is in the middle of a huge shopping centre (Eastland). The closest postbox to it is in the carpark of said huge shopping centre. While the post office does have both red and yellow postboxes, they are wooden boxes on wheels and are left inside the post office itself.

[twyngwyn]

last parcel pickup ATM at my local P.O. is 4.30pm......then, before they leave at 5pm they put everything in the red box outside.....not going to happen in the future....they're better off hanging onto items til the next day 10.30am pickup (Adelaide)

Maybe (as sellers) we might be better off not marking as posted if after ---pm??

[heihachi_73]

At this rate sellers sending locally might be better off taking the bus than using Australia Post!