Postage

[pats_treasures]

I have been posting with my own packaging and paying the flat rate.A parcel taken to the post office today was cubed and the postage was so high that is not possible to post so I will have to cancell the sale. I contacted Aus. Post and they tell me that the flat rate only applies if Satchels are used.If using own packaging and cubing postage is higher than the flat rate that is the postage that is charged. Is this correct? Perhaps I misread something. Please make allowances for old age 89yrs. this year!  Patricia.

[davewil1964]

I wouldn't know.

I imagine if they are on wages their Tetris would have a fair bit of airspace. Like mine.

If paid by the parcel, maybe less so.

The OP sells tennis stuff, a lot of which are racquets that definitely won't fit in AP packaging, but don't weigh much. But aren't L-shaped. Therein lies the rub.

[digital*ghost]

For the OP, maybe, doesn't detract from my point in general, though - a package can easily take up considerably less room than AP charged for - L shapes and Tetris involved or not. 

[lyndal1838]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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@davewil1964 wrote:

Sounds fair to me. They take up as much room in the truck as a 3-d rhomboid would.

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An L-shaped package wouldn't - neither would many other shapes.

Can't tell me the workers don't play a little Tetris when loading the trucks. 

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Does anyone really think that trucks and vans are loaded carefully, one parcel at a time?

In real life the drivers use pallets, cages, flash bags and various types of crates, depending on the size of the trucks/vans.

The majority of drivers load in order of delivery address, not by size of the parcel.

[minimum_56]

Another thing to note with regards to 'Own Packaging' & Aus Post.

I was sending multiple sets of books from Vic to NSW & I was using the Aus Post postage calculator to quote postage to the customer.

Parcel was 10.2kg in weight - but the price was changed depending on the dimensions of the parcel!!
There was a difference of about $8 depending on how I packaged the books...

Side by side versus single stack

[digital*ghost]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

Does anyone really think that trucks and vans are loaded carefully, one parcel at a time?

In real life the drivers use pallets, cages, flash bags and various types of crates, depending on the size of the trucks/vans.

The majority of drivers load in order of delivery address, not by size of the parcel.

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Parcels don't have to be loaded one at a time in painstaking effort to maximise the space of the truck, and again when they're not, parcel shape and volume will affect how they haphazardly fit together anyway. 

Besides which, you're not the only person with inside knowledge of parcel delivery practices, nor the only one that I get information from - lots of mail carriers joke about it, often facetiously, while some of them post pics of their Tetris acheivements. 

[Anonymous]

I believe AP said quite a while ago that odd shaped parcels would be cubed based on the longest sides. If it's in their terms then people have to accept it. The people we have to thank for this rule are the thieves who deliberately made their parcels an odd shape in order to avoid having them cubed.