Ok, need to let of a bit of steam.

I know it's Christmas, I know they are busy etc...

But what the hell is going on at the Post Office at the moment ???

I am not sure what the postal service is like in the rest of the world, but here in the UK 1st class used to mean pretty much next day. I have sent several things over the past few weeks, all of which have seen massive delays...

Sent a letter 1st class 10 days ago, still not there!
Sent an order 1st class to local supplier about 15 miles away from me 3 days ago, still not there!
Was sent a 1st class parcel 4 days ago from Ripon, about 25 miles away from me, still not here!
Going by the feedback I am getting from Amazon customers, a Standard Parcel is taking between 8 and 10 days to deliver!

It's now just after 14:00 and we haven't had our delivery for today yet, yesterday we had 2 deliveries before 11. Is it just me or does the Royal Mail suck big time at the moment?

Also on a side rant, did you know the cheapest you can now send a parcel is £4.20 and there is only 10p different between 1st and 2nd class.

Is this just me? Rant over (for now!)

Cheers

Cris.

I've actually been surprised at the efficiency of the USPS this Christmas season. No slowdowns that I've noticed at all.

I'll confirm what Bitt said for the most part. My orders sent to the US have been getting there more quickly than in past years given the typical holiday rush. However, there have been a couple which have taken weeks. One of which has already necessitated sending out a replacement package.

Mail delivery varies wildly around the world and there are more variables than I care to imagine. It's an insanely complex logistics problem and it's amazing things actually get anywhere.

As a reminder, I'm shipping from Canada. I've had some packages in the past couple of weeks reach UK addresses in 5 days. A recent one hit an address in the Netherlands in 4 days. 4 to 7 business days is my quoted "typical" time, but now and then I also see a curve-ball and 3 or 4 week delay.

In the past few years I've seen some problem countries. They include Italy, Spain and Russia. I would say that I've also had more problems with US deliveries than anywhere else, but that's not fair because the US accounts for so much more of my volume (and it's such a large country with seemingly varying mail standards from coast to coast).

Cris

http://www.interparcel.com/

Yeah, what is happening to the mail? I generally get very good service because I am in London but recently things have definitely been rubbish here too. I ordered something first class mail which was despatched on Monday, and only got it today (Friday). Really useless.

For parcels I sometimes use http://www.parcel2go.com/ which looks similar to Interparcel. Convenient and reliable.

Actually, the US Mail is one of the few local services that is pretty standard coast to coast. Were you thinking of anything in particular?

Mail to the USA generally takes longer for stuff that I send, than mail to any other country on the planet that I mail to. Including the UK, Italy, France, Norway, and Australia.

Ditto for the incoming direction.

Cheers

I was referring to Bruno's comment:

I know the USPS is supposed to be standardized, but the level of service just isn't the same across the whole country. Mail in general is hit or miss, but I've often found wild discrepancy with seemingly random US destinations.

Package to up-state New York ends up taking 3 weeks while another to California sent on the same day takes 4 days.

Some of it is going to be due to routing and I have absolutely no idea how mail is routed out of Canada. I can add it to the few other things I don't get. Like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

Will a parcel being shipped by USPS get delivered by Royal Mail in the UK?

I'm awaiting the delivery of my Saleae Logic. But looking at the tracking they attempted to deliver it to my work today, but for some reason they were unable to deliver. Nobody on reception seems to know anything about it, so I'm thinking they couldn't actually find the address (think big glass building in the middle of the city centre with it's own post code!).

I'm concerned that the fscktards at the Royal Mail will end up sending the bloody thing back to San Francisco.

What's the best way to get in touch with them? Preferably in the UK?

EDIT: Interestingly, from reading the dev blog it appears that Saleae have had loads of trouble with USPS especially overseas deliveries.

Yes, a parcel sent by USPS will be delivered by either the Royal Mail or Parcel Force. Royal Mail do an online redelivery service now, maybe it's worth giving that a try?

I do use Parcel2go.com to send large parcels, but I think their cheapest rate is around the £8 mark. You also have to be in for them to collect it, which is not always possible.

I can understand why there would be a delay in parcels sometimes, but for a letter to get to the next city seems to be pretty simple to me, and in the past if I posted at 17:00 in Leeds it would be on the mat in time for opening the next day in Bradford.

After I posted this, my postman rang my bell. He had something else I had ordered and was sent on Monday, basically taking 5 days door to door 1st class. Still no sign of my item from Ripon sent on the same day. He did comment that the sorting office was clear, and the delays were happening further back in the chain in the central sorting office. I just don't understand how we have let the Royal Mail get so bad. To me this seems to be yet another thing we invented and we are now rubbish at, like Cricket, Football and Rugby. He did comment that everyone is saying the same thing to him, so it's not just me.

Cheers

Cris.

I expect this is the part where the Royalmail(?) send you a postcard with details on how to pay import duty before they finally deliver the goods. There's a nifty (but legitimate) admin fee to be earned in doing this.

The English invented mail? I think not.

Wikipedia credits Iran (Persia) on having the first (credible) recorded postal system around 500BC.

However, I think he probably means the General Post Office (GPO) circa 1600's. It's rather sad to see the GPO site nowadays merely as a shopping portal http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po.

Its Christmas and they're overwhelmed by the deluge of cards and packages. Happens every year to a certain extent. I guess its especially bad this year.

Did they not invent chain mail? Or chain letters?

I think we did invent the stamp, and therefore the modern way of sending mail ??? That is what I was going for, not the fact that we were the first nation to send a written message to another human.

Cheers

Cris.

Maybe the Royal Mail does need to consult the USPS on how to deliver mail faster.

I love the internet

Cheers

Cris.

Can someone tell my why companies like the royal mail have to hide seemingly useful human beings behind automated call handling systems?

I took me longer to traverse the options list than it did to actually speak to someone and get the complete UK tracking info including the Royal Mail tracking number, along with the phone number of the depot that is currently holding the package.

I often wonder that myself.

I have recently been impressed by O2's customer service, some basic options (ie sales or technical) and you are straight through to a real life person who knows what they are doing. Brilliant.

Another thing that annoys me about delivery companies is that you need the tracking number, there are a few out there that only need your postcode and house number to find your package, why can't they all do that?

Cheers

Cris.

Exchange of key material. I wouldn't want a system where anybody who happened to know that I was expecting a package, could get it delivered to an arbitrary alternative address.

Peter

I can only add that I went to school with Rowland Hill's Great, Great Grandsons!
I'm doing my family tree at the moment, and I've made the discovery that I'm 1/4 Welsh and that one of my ancestors was given as a train driver in the 1861 census - this explains much!

I think that explains a little more

Cheers

Cris.

PS - I'm 1/4 Irish so I'm a fine one to talk

If it seemed slow, then perhaps it's because of the recent triple undersea cable cut that is impacting telecomms to/from India.

I'm 1/8th a McCarthy, so I'm not too far behind you!

Well, the only thing that the stamp did was allow for mail prepaid by the sender. Certainly turned out to be significant (it created the ability for there to be junk mail, for one), but people certainly sent letters before there were stamps. Think of the mass of epistolary novels that were written in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

I was actually pleasantly surprised when I spoke to an English lady. Although she did sound like she was from Leeds so the language barrier was still an issue.....

The one thing that caused me more bother than anything else, apart from Tetley's, when I first came from the idyllic southlands was that, in Leeds, "while" is used instead of "until", don't ask me why, as in "He won't be in WHILE after lunch.
"Do not cross the road WHILE the lights are red" must have murdered millions, on its inception.

...in much the same way, presumably, that email created spam!

Nobody credits Rowland Hill with the inception of mail, just its feasibility and popularity, it was the province of the rich, in much the same way that couriers would be if you took away a door-to-door postal service now.

We had a decent amount of snow fall yesterday afternoon, and I was scheduled to get a few packages delivered. I decided to go skiing and enjoy the foot of powder, and when I returned home nothing was delivered. Then I checked the tracking page and noticed UPS was in a state of emergency.

I'm noticing that packages sent within Canada are taking at least twice as long as they should be (according to Canada Post's own standards).

It also costs 2 to 6 times as much to send a small package within Canada as it does to send the same item to the US or internationally.

And even the lower priced service to the US and internationally is much more expensive than the same and/or better service going out of the US using their postal service.

On top of that, if you try using Canada Post's web site to send something you might consider lettermail, such as a magazine, you'll end up paying up to $12 to ship it because the online tools will not give you lettermail nor letterpost rates. As soon as something is considered a "package," even if it's in the exact same envelope, you're going to pay a lot more for it.

In the US, we have media-mail/4th-class service for things like magazines. Is there not something similar in Canada?

There is something similar, but as a consumer you don't have access to all the shipping options that an advertiser or publisher would have. Magazines would fit into the Lettermail/letterpost classification depending on destination. Specifically in the non-standard envelope rate.

Nothing but parcel rates are available online though.

The packages I ship normally will fit dimensionally within the parameters allowed for the non-standard lettermail. However since I process everything online, I end up getting stuck for large rates within Canada. For packages to the western provinces I was actually losing money on shipping.

The same item shipped using USPS could be sent with first class parcel which provides a much faster service standard and includes up to 4 times the insurance coverage as our postal system does (for parcel). At it could cost as little as $2 total.

It's possible for me to ship to the US for close to $2 but it doesn't include any insurance and takes at least a week. This is the method I was thinking about when I said that I could ship internationally (much) cheaper than within Canada. And lately, with faster (but not guaranteed) delivery times.

Wow. I thought the USPS web site was bad. The Canada Post web site is nearly unnavigable.

My Logic arrived safe and sound. Looks like it was mis-routed in Manchester. I've also ordered some bits and bobs from Sparkfun in Boulder CO also being delivered by USPS. Now the wierd thing is, my Logic came from San Francisco but had to go down to Los Angeles in order to leave the country. But my SFE order left the US from San Francisco! Surely my logic could've been routed from there?

BTW, any ideas for a reasonable way to ship oversize stuff from the US to Europe? Last year we brought a wall hanging thingie from a close-out sale in New Jersey, but both the local post office and DHL quoted postage prices of 200+ USD due to it being oversize. When we asked 6 moths later, the post office suddenly wanted 650 USD for shipping it...

This is why I used a little bit of space on the pallet that was sent over last year from Rob R to Rob V. I think everything goes airmail now so it has become very very expansive to ship anything large or heavy (my item was very heavy). I never found a cheap solution, at the current price of flights it's almost cheaper and faster to fly out and get it your self and bring it back as luggage!

I am pretty sure they stopped surface mail between the US and Europe about 2 years ago now. U may be wrong.

Cheers

Cris.

PS - The letter that triggered this rant finally turned up on Monday, 6 days to travel 14 miles. 1st class my ass, and today they have announced a 3p increase, an 8.3% increase in price for a service which is worse than it has ever been.

Your best bet is probably going to be a passenger airline's cargo service. When I was a kid, my parents had a piece of furniture shipped from Italy and that was the route they took.

canadapost.ca still lists international (outside of USA and Canada) surface mail rates for parcels and "small packets".

-ml

According to multiple people at CanPost, a lot of those "surface" packages go by air anyway, so sometimes it makes a cheaper shipping option.

But I guess canada post can't pick up in the US