Efficiency of parcel delivery

[PaxVobiscum]

Some of us can still remember when parcels were distributed by rail instead of the 21st century's super efficient road logistics solutions :roll:
Rail parcels could do a same day service London to Glasgow.

See what you think of this delivery - a printer ordered on 4th December from the worldwide web's wonderful "women warriors". It has to travel about 35 miles to reach me.

Ship Carrier ***********
Tracking Number: (lotsa digits)
Status: In transit

Order #: ************************
Dispatch Date: 6 Dec 2012
Destination: GLASGOW, LANARKSHIRE, GB
Estimated Arrival: 11 Dec 2012


Date Time Location Event Details
7 Dec 2012 09:27:34 AM Wednesbury WEST MIDLANDS GB Departure Scan
7 Dec 2012 09:26:50 AM Wednesbury WEST MIDLANDS GB Arrival Scan
6 Dec 2012 12:01:00 AM Newbridge MIDLOTHIAN GB Shipment received by carrier

I wonder where it will go to next on its tour of Britain?
Maybe I should have offered to walk and collect it myself.

 

[starrymarkb]

Who is it doing the shipping? Some Carriers (coughYodelcough) are not known for taking direct routes or finding your door. Mind you at least it's still in the UK... I've known stuff go via Canada before!

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Maybe the carrier's falsetto singing (HINT!) is due to the incidence of frustrated customers kicking the drivers in the g**lies?

 

[kylemore]

Yeh but they still managed to destroy the Rail Parcels business, mind you it would have been well sabotaged from within by successive Govts and inept managements!

 

[Metrailway]

Ah, the wonders of a hub and spoke distribution model. Usually cheaper than point to point transportation, as the transportation company's vehicles tend to be used to maximum capacity. I think all of the major mail/parcel delivery providers, including the Royal Mail, now use hub and spoke.

It is similar to how the rail freight was transported when wagonload ruled the railway, with wagons from a siding (spoke) went to marshalling yards (hub), joined other wagons, which were then transported to another (or several) marshalling yard (hub) and then split and moved to it's destination siding (spoke).

 

[90019]

Who is it doing the shipping? Some Carriers (coughYodelcough) are not known for taking direct routes or finding your door. Mind you at least it's still in the UK... I've known stuff go via Canada before!

Since it's been to Newbridge, I'd say it's probably DHL.

 

[wintonian]

I like Amazon locker.

I ordered my item on Wendsday and it came all the way down from Edinburgh to Southampton ready for me to pickup at lunchtime yesterday, and it takes 10 - 12 seconds to collect - all for £1.99. I'ts particularly good for me as no-one can ever find my house the first time and Yodal normally just dump it outside the front door on the 3rd attempt.

 

[maniacmartin]

Try living at an address that's not in Royal Mail's Postcode Address File like me. Some online forms insist you choose an entry from the PAF and telesales clerks sometimes think they know best and "correct" the address I give them.

Royal Mail only allow one entry per "delivery point" (letterbox) for new entries now, so they refuse to acknowledge that my building has been chopped up into flats. The downside is that for signed-for items, the postman doesn't know which doorbell to press!

I have my own version if Amazon locker - my work address . This is actually something that Tesco have got right with Tesco Direct, in that many of their stores are the equivlent of Amazon Lockers.

 

[wintonian]

Ok try living somewhere that has had 3 and 2 street numbers different postcodes allocated in less than 10 years when some companys buy a new copy of the PAF regularly whilst others just buy 1 and never update it.

The useless bods at Abbey National wouldn't let me open an account initialy as all the ID I had that matched the combinations on their list all had different postcodes even though the blooming rest of it was the same on most of them. :-x

 

[Crossover]

I know DPD use the hub and spoke delivery model - their HQ is in Birmingham and you pass it whilst traveling between Wolverhampton and New St. The above parcel isn't them as they don't have theirs in Wednesbury, plus I think they tend to keep local ones local where possible.

Despite the above, it does amaze me how quick things can get around even now. Recently ordered a printer from Misco for work. Placed the order at 5pm and it arrived the next day at about 11am!

Likewise, ended up ordering something from America and in 6 days it went from Illinois, via Palatine and Chicago, Louisville, Newark (America), Stansted, Castle Donnington and arrived in Manchester!

 

[causton]

Free trial of Amazon Prime for me has meant that yesterday I ordered my own Christmas present - a load of computer parts to make a computer! I also added some other presents, and apparently the most efficient way is in five seperate deliveries!

Delivery 1: Motherboard and Processor from Amazon - via Royal Mail (expected Wednesday)
Delivery 2: Windows 7 install disc from Amazon - via Royal Mail (expected Saturday)
Delivery 3: Computer case, hard drive, RAM from Amazon - via HDNL (expected Saturday)
Delivery 4: Books and presents (one from Amazon Warehouse) - from Amazon via "Amazon deliveries from APLE" (expected Saturday)
Delivery 5: Box of chocolates from external seller via Royal Mail (expected who-knows-when)

And to top it off, the Delivery 1 is actually 2 seperate parcels and one is now shown as expected to arrive earlier despite being posted together! The mind boggles...

 

[Liam]

Free trial of Amazon Prime for me has meant that yesterday I ordered my own Christmas present - a load of computer parts to make a computer! I also added some other presents, and apparently the most efficient way is in five seperate deliveries!

Delivery 1: Motherboard and Processor from Amazon - via Royal Mail (expected Wednesday)
Delivery 2: Windows 7 install disc from Amazon - via Royal Mail (expected Saturday)
Delivery 3: Computer case, hard drive, RAM from Amazon - via HDNL (expected Saturday)
Delivery 4: Books and presents (one from Amazon Warehouse) - from Amazon via "Amazon deliveries from APLE" (expected Saturday)
Delivery 5: Box of chocolates from external seller via Royal Mail (expected who-knows-when)

And to top it off, the Delivery 1 is actually 2 seperate parcels and one is now shown as expected to arrive earlier despite being posted together! The mind boggles...

IIRC, Amazon have 6 or 7 warehouses all over the country, I imagine each will concentrate on certain product lines.

 

[causton]

IIRC, Amazon have 6 or 7 warehouses all over the country, I imagine each will concentrate on certain product lines.

Indeed - just noticed that APLE is the name of a courier company in Milton Keynes, which is where two of my parcels are at the moment! The other is at "Prime Sort" whilst all the others don't have tracking...

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Just thought that I may make a posting of warning here, as certain scams feature well known parcel delivery company names such as UPS are being used by these scammers to send messages to inboxes asking people to contact them regarding a parcel in transit to the recipient. In a commercial organisation, this could be seen as a normal request, which once is activated by accessing this message achieves the desired effect of the scammers.

 

[wintonian]

IIRC, Amazon have 6 or 7 warehouses all over the country, I imagine each will concentrate on certain product lines.

Not that long ago I ordered 2 of the small BBC Good Food books at the same time, however they were dispatched separately but still managed to arrive at the same time in separate packages. So goodness knows how they split the stock up. :-?

 

[IanXC]

The useless bods at Abbey National wouldn't let me open an account initialy as all the ID I had that matched the combinations on their list all had different postcodes even though the blooming rest of it was the same on most of them. :-x

To be fair it is a bit of a mine field with the Money Laundering Regulations. They'd have to evidence that the 2 addresses were indeed one and the same place. I have a couple of photocopied letters I use for local addresses but I'd be lost if someone was from further away.

Does anyone know if there is a comprehensive list of previous changes?

 

[Eagle]

Does anyone know if there is a comprehensive list of previous changes?

I believe Royal Mail publish lists of postcode changes every six months. Although only the sector changes are available to those who haven't got a copy of the PAF.

 

[maniacmartin]

Placed the order at 5pm and it arrived the next day at about 11am!

Even better than that, EBuyer offer next day delivery for orders placed by 11pm.

 

[Crossover]

Just thought that I may make a posting of warning here, as certain scams feature well known parcel delivery company names such as UPS are being used by these scammers to send messages to inboxes asking people to contact them regarding a parcel in transit to the recipient. In a commercial organisation, this could be seen as a normal request, which once is activated by accessing this message achieves the desired effect of the scammers.

Absolutely true. With ours, I tend to find there are two types:

One has a virused attachment, and these tend to get blocked at source by our host provider (if for nothing else, because the attachment is an executable, which, along with batch files, scripts etc are blocked for obvious reasons)

The other is the link. I'd hope any virus would be picked up by our system but what I tend to find is that I get an email from the user along the lines of "Is this real...I don't recall expecting anything?"

They tend to come in "lumps" - we can go for days without any banned attachments trying to get in, then I'll get 6 alerts in the space of 60 seconds with an email address claiming to be Fedex etc

 

[Seacook]

Some of us can still remember when parcels were distributed by rail instead of the 21st century's super efficient road logistics solutions :roll:
Rail parcels could do a same day service London to Glasgow.

See what you think of this delivery - a printer ordered on 4th December from the worldwide web's wonderful "women warriors". It has to travel about 35 miles to reach me.

Going from the Wednesbury hub, the delivery company is probably [type of singing associated with the Swiss].

This is the tracking for one of my orders from HugeSouthAmericanRiver



Information about delivery
Ship Carrier [Almost but not quite a leading tablet computer maker]

Status: Delivered
Location: Left with neighbor
Signed for by: [me]
Door Number: [my house]


Dispatch Date: 2 Dec 2012
Destination: West Bromwich, West Midlands, GB


Track your package
Date Time Location Event Details
3 Dec 2012 01:45:37 PM West Bromwich GB Delivered
3 Dec 2012 06:17:11 AM Birmingham GB Out for delivery
2 Dec 2012 11:54:15 PM Birmingham GB Arrival Scan
2 Dec 2012 05:45:59 PM Peterborough GB Order has been handed over to the carrier and is in transit


Leaving aside the fact that the parcel came from Peterborough, rather than Wednesbury which is less than four miles away from me (depends on what is stored where), I do query how the parcel can have been signed for by me at my address and also left with a neighbor [sic].

 

[D2022]

I live in Blunsdon, under the umbrella SN26 code we have Broad Blunsdon, Lower Blunsdon, Upper Blunsdon, Blunsdon St. Andrew and the new North Blunsdon. All chopped and changed by those who live here, hell I don't even know which one I'm in! I've lived here 6 years lol. So you can guess what happens to or parcels when out of area drivers turn up. Confronted with a village spread over about 6 miles with various names and bugger all helpful people, they tend to head back to Dorcan or Hawksworth depots and dump it there.

 

[richw]

My old postcode covered 3 streets of about 8 properties in each street. It always confused automated systems, as input house number and postcode and it threw back 3 different addresses, and one large company had to override their computer system every time I used them, as it wouldnt accept the correct street name.

 

[dubscottie]

A package I ordered from Germany went to the UK (Coventry) then to Dublin (where I live) back to Coventry then Belfast and then back to Dublin!

I get anyone sending me stuff to put my address in Irish now..

Posted 2 postcards from Edinburgh to my own address years ago. One addressed in Irish and the other in english.

The Irish addressed one arrived 4 days before the English one!

 

[PaxVobiscum]

BREAKING NEWS as they say on the telly (ie this happened yesterday )

With no visible update on the tracking, I went out for a couple of hours yesterday safe in the knowledge that the parcel was in no danger of delivery until next week.

Needless to say, as soon as I was on the train into town all this extra stuff appeared:

Track your package
Date Time Location Event Details
8 Dec 2012 01:17:01 PM Bellshill STRATHCLYDE GB Delivered
8 Dec 2012 07:52:00 AM Bellshill STRATHCLYDE GB Out for delivery
8 Dec 2012 05:16:00 AM Bellshill STRATHCLYDE GB Problem resolved and shipment is in transit
8 Dec 2012 05:15:00 AM Bellshill STRATHCLYDE GB Arrival Scan
7 Dec 2012 09:27:34 AM Wednesbury WEST MIDLANDS GB Departure Scan
7 Dec 2012 09:26:50 AM Wednesbury WEST MIDLANDS GB Arrival Scan
6 Dec 2012 12:01:00 AM Newbridge MIDLOTHIAN GB Shipment received by carrier

I am of course pleased to have it earlier than expected (lucky my neighbours were in). Glad to see that some kind of problem is acknowledged though.

 

[anthony263]

I have found this thread to be particulary interesting especially since I start work for Parcelforce tommorow so I am looking forward to a busy day.

 

[90019]

I have found this thread to be particulary interesting especially since I start work for Parcelforce tommorow so I am looking forward to a busy day.

If you're a driver, you'll presumably perfect the art of dumping everything at the nearest Post Office and putting the notes through everyone's doors when they're not looking.


I have never had a package that's actually been delivered by Parcelforce, they always end up at the local Post Office.
The advantage to this, however, is that it means I never have to bother waiting around the house if I know something is being delivered by them.

 

[Lewisham2221]

If you're a driver, you'll presumably perfect the art of dumping everything at the nearest Post Office and putting the notes through everyone's doors when they're not looking.


I have never had a package that's actually been delivered by Parcelforce, they always end up at the local Post Office.
The only advantage to this is that it means I never have to bother waiting around the house if I know something is being delivered by them.

What I find annoying is that Parcelforce will leave your item at the local Post Office, wheras Royal Mail will return any undelivered items to the sorting/delivery office. As the Post Office is only 5 minutes away, the PF option is far more conveniant than the RM option which ends up a couple of miles away.

 

[wintonian]

If you're a driver, you'll presumably perfect the art of dumping everything at the nearest Post Office and putting the notes through everyone's doors when they're not looking.


I have never had a package that's actually been delivered by Parcelforce, they always end up at the local Post Office.
The only advantage to this is that it means I never have to bother waiting around the house if I know something is being delivered by them.

Conversely for me Parcelforce are one of the more reliable carriers, however if I have to rearrange delivery I know to completely avoid my local post office who even manage to lose special delivery items. For examlple, I went to pick up a signed for item once only for them to tell me they couldn't find it, that is until I pointed to the envelope with my name and address on that was sitting on the desk right in front of them. :roll:

Mind you the special delivery item they lost (after I had asked for it to be sent there for me to pick up and was tracked as waiting there for me) was on the way back to me after Royal Mail decided they couldn't find the address, of-course after the Post Office couldn't find it the tracking information then said it was on its way back to the sender as it was uncollected - I ended up claiming the postage fee back. :roll:

This is what happens when you close down a very good Crown Post Office and then shove it in a corner of WHSmith and populate it with retail staff instead of Post Office clerks. :-x

 

[Greenback]

This is what happens when you close down a very good Crown Post Office and then shove it in a corner of WHSmith and populate it with retail staff instead of Post Office clerks. :-x

Spot on there! This is what happened in Swansea several years ago. I remember when the city had three Crown offices, now it's only central one is upstairs in Smiths.

 

[richw]

Glad we still have a proper Post Office/ sorting office in my town where we can collect items.
Its directly opposite Redruth railway station