Choice At The Post Office

[KiwiScot 1,491]

Now when you visit the post office to post a parcel(I don't know about letters) you will have a choice of either Royal Mail, DPD or that awful company Evri(MyHermes). This will start later on in the month. Apparently customers have been complaining about Royal Mail losing parcels or delivering late. Personally I've never had anything to complain about from Royal Mail. When something is delivered by them there is never some strange, stupid of delivery or plain not delivering and making up stuff(Looking at you MyHermes).

I suppose you'll have different prices on offer as well.

The Post Office already offers alternatives to Royal Mail online but has never yet done so in branches. The company said it planned to enter partnerships with even more delivery carriers in the future. The Post Office said deals with Evri and DPD would also benefit the postmasters who run individual branches because they would bring in more customers.

The two companies were part of the same group until 2012, when the Post Office was split out into a separate business. While the Post Office manages the network of 11,500 branches and banking services, Royal Mail is responsible for delivery, where it faces increasing competition from courier companies.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

We haven't got a Post Office. It shut last year.

[benchwarmer 625]

Last Saturday morning I posted a Get Well card at my local post office to a friend who lives in Costessey, four miles away, second class.  It arrived on Thursday.

[benchwarmer 625]

Today I went to post a calendar to my sister in New Zealand.  They told me it had to go by parcel post and tried to charge £17 for standard delivery.  The calendar cost £8.99.  I drew the line at, that and have now found one small enough to go by letter post, but it will probably cost at least a fiver to send it.  Two or three years ago it was about £3.

Edited November 23, 2023 by benchwarmer

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,459]

On 12/11/2023 at 10:47, benchwarmer said:

Last Saturday morning I posted a Get Well card at my local post office to a friend who lives in Costessey, four miles away, second class.  It arrived on Thursday.

Cheapskate 😁

[KiwiScot 1,491]

I like to use the self service machines to post parcels at Christmas as it evades questions about the contents from staff. I usually check the customs requirements for what I'm sending, but I got sick of the questions from staff so loved the machines.

Went in today. Big Sign "You cannot use self service machines to send large letters and parcels abroad"

Staff said this is in relation to the Cyber attack in January.

[Herman 9,859]

I got one of those messages that strikes fear into every Britons heart;

Evri....We've got your parcel.

Now for the fun game of guessing where and when it will turn up.

[Naturalcynic 683]

On 23/11/2023 at 13:17, benchwarmer said:

Today I went to post a calendar to my sister in New Zealand.  They told me it had to go by parcel post and tried to charge £17 for standard delivery.  The calendar cost £8.99.  I drew the line at, that and have now found one small enough to go by letter post, but it will probably cost at least a fiver to send it.  Two or three years ago it was about £3.

Don’t know if it’s possible, but couldn’t you have ordered one as a gift from the New Zealand branch of Amazon with, presumably, free delivery in New Zealand?

[Nuff Said 5,246]

11 minutes ago, Naturalcynic said:

Don’t know if it’s possible, but couldn’t you have ordered one as a gift from the New Zealand branch of Amazon with, presumably, free delivery in New Zealand?

While I realise this isn’t the more general point you’re making, there are those of us who deliberately don’t use Amazon because of their dominance in a number of crucial business sectors. And also because of the way they treat both their employees and small business customers. I’ve not bought from them for many years.

 

Fight the power! Yeah! Stick it to the man.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Nuff Said

[Naturalcynic 683]

7 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

While I realise this isn’t the more general point you’re making, there are those of us who deliberately don’t use Amazon because of their dominance in a number of crucial business sectors. And also because of the way they treat both their employees and small business customers. I’ve not bought from them for many years.

 

Fight the power! Yeah! Stick it to the man.

Each to their own, and if you’re wealthy enough to happily pay far more than you need to for stuff then so be it.

[Herman 9,859]

16 minutes ago, Naturalcynic said:

Each to their own, and if you’re wealthy enough to happily pay far more than you need to for stuff then so be it.

Their prices aren't that much better nowadays. I can get most of what I need from other sites at comparable prices. What they have is reliable delivery. They got that sussed. The only trouble is that every other company is held to their standards and tend to fall short.

[KiwiScot 1,491]

2 hours ago, Herman said:

I got one of those messages that strikes fear into every Britons heart;

Evri....We've got your parcel.

Now for the fun game of guessing where and when it will turn up.

The company so bad they had to rebrand, but being that bad they chose a name that everyone reads as "Evil"

[benchwarmer 625]

11 minutes ago, TheDarkKnight said:

Hermes/Evri is dependant on your regional courier. My previous 3 or 4 couriers were unreliable. The current courier is a Saint. He is so nice. He even delivered on Sunday.

Agreed, the Hermes/Evri courier where I live has better local knowledge than most of the others.  Right now Amazon is the worst.

[KiwiScot 1,491]

22 minutes ago, TheDarkKnight said:

It's the cheapest of It's competitors. It may be Royal Mail but doing it online js cheaper than literally going to the post office. Why? No idea.

As I discovered making this thread Royal Mail and the Post Office were split into two seperate companies years ago, but the post office could only offer Royal Mail services until now. So maybe if you do Royal Mail online they don't have to pay the post office as much hence why cheaper.

Evil couriers round my current place are fine, but then it's easy for them. I used to live at the top floor of your standard glasgow tenement, you know the type, where the close door is rarely closed and locked. The **** would leave it around the ground floor or  one half landing if you were lucky claiming they'd rang my door bell etc.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,613]

What's incredible about Amazon is that out of over 517bn revenue, 225bn of that was profit. It's crazy how dominant it is.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/gross-profit

The problem is that online transactions are just so perilous, it deters going elsewhere.

[sonyc 5,541]

23 hours ago, Herman said:

Their prices aren't that much better nowadays. I can get most of what I need from other sites at comparable prices. What they have is reliable delivery. They got that sussed. The only trouble is that every other company is held to their standards and tend to fall short.

That's the nub isn't it. Delivery is reliable and so speedy (the latter is mere convenience of course). It's a quandary. Delivery staff (round us, whether DPD or Evri or Amazon) are very friendly. I spoke to the DPD fella the other day as he was delivering up the street and he said he had 167 items that day in his van (he had asked for a cap at 160 and usually he would have 120 at most). 

I read the other day that a woman found a hard piece of plastic in her Regatta jacket. She unsealed it to find a prisoner card of. Chinese man! Not great marketing for Regatta. Several years ago I bought a rain jacket from them (reduced from £100 to about £30) but now I feel unsettled about it. I didn't realise. Same as some other companies selling knitwear. An eye opener really. Each day we risk supporting an Uber capitalist world that is exploitative.

Like @Nuff Saidhas posted above all you can do (if you care enough) is to not use Amazon and try to use local or UK sourced stuff. That's what we've tried to do for the last 2 years at least - just buy from anyone who is not "the man". That includes coffee shops, the main big stores and so on. Prices are often competitive. It's why I posted about Patrick Grant's initiative Community Clothing a week or so back. Their ethos is on their website...(link below). They source locally and around the UK and skill up local people. You pay a little bit more.

https://communityclothing.co.uk/?utm_campaign=gs-2021-11-10&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA67CrBhC1ARIsACKAa8QQ64K98D_WEcO19Ud3wuAuOU6Ka-z0OGz5XstGOujnI3ffkhGSWVAaApD-EALw_wcB

There's not too much we can do to back British business in such a globalised market but I'm sure that actual purchases help. It's what Brexit ought to have really been about (ideally without leaving a single market and customs union of course!) - the idea of really investing for the long term (let's say a generation's worth of years) in skill acquisition and local.industry and not supporting the money people that help you win votes. Or in the shires. And so on. 

AI will gradually mean less jobs ahead too.

[Herman 9,859]

12 hours ago, sonyc said:

That's the nub isn't it. Delivery is reliable and so speedy (the latter is mere convenience of course). It's a quandary. Delivery staff (round us, whether DPD or Evri or Amazon) are very friendly. I spoke to the DPD fella the other day as he was delivering up the street and he said he had 167 items that day in his van (he had asked for a cap at 160 and usually he would have 120 at most). 

I read the other day that a woman found a hard piece of plastic in her Regatta jacket. She unsealed it to find a prisoner card of. Chinese man! Not great marketing for Regatta. Several years ago I bought a rain jacket from them (reduced from £100 to about £30) but now I feel unsettled about it. I didn't realise. Same as some other companies selling knitwear. An eye opener really. Each day we risk supporting an Uber capitalist world that is exploitative.

Like @Nuff Saidhas posted above all you can do (if you care enough) is to not use Amazon and try to use local or UK sourced stuff. That's what we've tried to do for the last 2 years at least - just buy from anyone who is not "the man". That includes coffee shops, the main big stores and so on. Prices are often competitive. It's why I posted about Patrick Grant's initiative Community Clothing a week or so back. Their ethos is on their website...(link below). They source locally and around the UK and skill up local people. You pay a little bit more.

https://communityclothing.co.uk/?utm_campaign=gs-2021-11-10&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA67CrBhC1ARIsACKAa8QQ64K98D_WEcO19Ud3wuAuOU6Ka-z0OGz5XstGOujnI3ffkhGSWVAaApD-EALw_wcB

There's not too much we can do to back British business in such a globalised market but I'm sure that actual purchases help. It's what Brexit ought to have really been about (ideally without leaving a single market and customs union of course!) - the idea of really investing for the long term (let's say a generation's worth of years) in skill acquisition and local.industry and not supporting the money people that help you win votes. Or in the shires. And so on. 

AI will gradually mean less jobs ahead too.

I read about the Chinese ID found in a coat. It was a prison ID. A sad feeling that a lot of big companies are paying lip service to anti-slavery laws and are so desperate to sell stuff. The fact that places like Primark are so popular with their fast fashion that I get the feeling most members of the public don't really care either.

AI and automation have taken over already. Massive warehouses on the M1 for Amazon, Ocado etc won't be employing many staff anymore. Places the size of Old Trafford could easily run on hundreds rather than thousands of workers. Probably less.

As to my Evri delivery it was early and to the right address. Unfortunately it was to my work on a rainy sunday afternoon so I had to drive over to rescue it. It really didn't need to delivered today.

[......and Smith must score. 1,369]

On 02/12/2023 at 14:39, TheDarkKnight said:

My previous courier chapped the door with the aggression and the power of a Robin Red breast.

Is chapped a Scottish way of saying knocked on the door ?

[KiwiScot 1,491]

8 minutes ago, ......and Smith must score. said:

Is chapped a Scottish way of saying knocked on the door ?

Yes and if you were playing "chappie" as a kid thats knocking on the door and running away.

[TheGunnShow 6,095]

2 minutes ago, KiwiScot said:

Yes and if you were playing "chappie" as a kid thats knocking on the door and running away.

We called that "knock-a-door run" in my corner of northern England.

[Herman 9,859]

Knock down Ginger my part of England. 

[Badger 2,415]

On 02/12/2023 at 19:59, littleyellowbirdie said:

What's incredible about Amazon is that out of over 517bn revenue, 225bn of that was profit. It's crazy how dominant it is.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/gross-profit

The problem is that online transactions are just so perilous, it deters going elsewhere.

... and how much tax did they pay?

[......and Smith must score. 1,369]

1 hour ago, KiwiScot said:

Yes and if you were playing "chappie" as a kid thats knocking on the door and running away.

Did plenty of that until we made the fatal error of doing it at the caretakers who grassed us up

[Naturalcynic 683]

7 hours ago, Badger said:

... and how much tax did they pay?

If they had any sense, no more than they were required to.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Naturalcynic

[benchwarmer 625]

8 hours ago, KiwiScot said:

Yes and if you were playing "chappie" as a kid thats knocking on the door and running away.

Slightly OT, but I wonder if the English word "scrimmage" is related to the Scottish word "stramash"?

Edited December 4, 2023 by benchwarmer

[Badger 2,415]

1 hour ago, Naturalcynic said:

If they had any sense, no more than they were required to.

Who would?

The point is however, that they "benefit" from UK infrastructure (roads etc) without making a significant contribution towards it upkeep and development. The appalling state of our infrastructure is one of the reasons why our productivity growth is slow and the low rate of economic growth. There needs to be a method of fairly taxing the online mega businesses.