UKNM: RE: ParcelForce & Couriers

[Ian Tester]

Martin Phillips wrote :

"I work for a mail order company that sends out thousands of packets

and parcels a day, and we use the Royal Mail and Parcelforce because

no-one else can touch them on price across the whole country. As for

service, I'm not sure that others are much better than Parcelforce on

packets lost and damaged - there are lots who claim to be, but the

only ones who have better loss rates also charge so much more that

it's not economic."


The trouble with Parcel force is that their audit trail is absolutely

farcical - have you ever tried their "web based track  & trace facility"? It

seems to update about a week after the delivery has been made - great use of

systems and the web . . .not. Their phone facility isn't much better - if

their customer services can't track a parcel around the country (the last

time i tried to track down a delivery, they managed to tell me it was in

London - in a sorting office with no parcel handling capacity), what chance

have the online store got? They may be fine for offline retailers, but not

for online.


Another problem seems to be that the quality of the delivery seems to depend

on who is driving your van - I just don't get the impression that they've

developed the consistently high standards of companies like UPS & DHL and

tried to enforce them across the company. I'm sure UPS & the other big

internationals have got their eyes very firmly on the e-commerce game, and

something up their sleeve which will leave the others standing . . .they

haven't been spending all that money on online tracking for nothing . . . 


i


Ian Tester, Business Development, boo.com 

5-7 Carnaby Street, London W1V 1PG, UK

T + 44 (0)20 7950 4445 M +44 (0)7880 557692 F +44 (0)20 7950 0951 E

ian [dot] testeruk [dot] boo [dot] com

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