Both RS and Element 14 have excellent delivery services.

Element14 recently put a $45 ex GST order minimum for free delivery for online orders, while I think RS still has no minimum order amount (though I really wonder how they can keep that going).

I've had a good delivery experience from RS Components though in saying that when the bulk of a business relies on punctuality then it just has to be that way.

Seems it's my turn to be screwed around with by Australia Post.

Parcel sent from VIC on 29 April is in NSW but has apparently been sitting at Chullora for 5 elapsed days. I would not be surprised to find that it's been sent back to VIC.


Current Status
In transit Processed through Australia Post facility 7:28 am Thu 5 May Chullora, NSW

Previous event
In transit Processed through Australia Post facility 4:10 pm Wed 4 May Chullora, NSW

Previous event
In transit Processed through Australia Post facility 6:53 pm Tue 3 May Sunshine West, VIC

Previous event
In transit Received by Australia Post 2:43 pm Fri 29 Apr Hawthorn, VIC

Aus Post hasn’t franked any stamps on any of my parcels that have arrived from within Australia for months.
I thought it might be some protest or sabotage by the workers against privatising it. It’s too much for coincidence now.

I have to agree that RS is fast. Despite having a rural mailbox, we had to resort to a PO Box in town, decades ago, as there were those that delight in ratting them & it is never unusual to find an article from another mailbox, dumped along my main road frontage ( 800+m). This being distinct from what the Recycle truck leaves along the road.

Now that it has been privatised I have had several articles for Yarrawonga in my Box at Wangaratta ( Someone needs Spec Savers) and I have to prepare Newsletters a week earlier as Snail mail is now "Tired snail mail".

Its really frustrating down here at the moment because they do the delieries at 5 am . So all they do is leave a card grrr.

You are lucky Carl, I only get 3 delivery's a week and have to go to the post office to pick up parcels most times any way. (40km round trip)

That's country life for you.

Here's another one. Just as well I don't need this part urgently:

Unfortunately we found it rather essential to get a PO Box despite having the added cost of it and having to spend extra money in detouring home from work, or making special trips from the rural location.

It was not and still is not, during school holidays, to do a boundary ride around the fences on the outside (public roads) and find mail that has been taken out of a roadside box several K away & tossed.

Because we are rural & also too much effort & time, rural package dumping at the PO is common.

Marc

I have a box at the Sydney GPO for security reasons and pretty much to make sure all my parcels get to where they are supposed to be - to me. Anyone that demands a home address I won't have dealings with but where carriers are used, making a PO box not possible I'll provide my work address and request name and signature on delivery. And yes, a PO box, particularly a GPO box is not cheap. It's over $600 a year (large size) but it is the most convenient location for me.

It was not and still is not, during school holidays, to do a boundary ride around the fences on the outside (public roads) and find mail that has been taken out of a roadside box several K away & tossed.

Those doing that would be in big trouble if caught. There's a little-known Commonwealth law that decrees all mail to be the property of Her Majesty the Queen until personally received by the addressee. I don't know the exact penalty for mail theft but it is severe. Postal workers who have stolen birthday cards containing money, for example, have gone to gaol for it in addition to being punted onto the dole queue.

Photo uploaded to Post 38.

I'll give them this - they are consistent.

Now that six million dollar man has quit as CEO, they might have some cash available to spend on better staff.

And they could scale back to a delivery system that doesn't double-handle our parcels. The less time items spend in a postal warehouse the better chance they have of arriving in one piece.

This newspaper headline today highlights another pet peeve of mine when it comes to Australia Post parcel delivery:

"Consumer frustration at receiving a mail delivery card when someone is home "

I have had this happen to me twice last year. Knowing from the tracking data that a parcel was to be delivered on the given day, I stayed at home to sign for it. I can see the street and my letter box from my window. After hanging around for half the day, here comes the StarTrack (owned by AusPost) courier. He pulls up beside my letter box, writes on a card, drops it in my box and speeds away before I have a chance to run down and stop him. No attempt to knock at all.

This guy got that card into my box so quickly that he must have spent the first half hour of his shift writing con note numbers and addresses onto cards. I guess all he does at the address is to write the name of the PO to collect from.

I then have to wait until 4.30pm to go to the local post office which closes at 5.00pm. When I get to the PO it is jammed full of undelivered courier parcels. In other words, the lazy StarTrack driver has driven around all day depositing cards and then dumped a truck load of parcels onto the hapless PO staff. So many that they have to leave them on the floor in front of the counter for lack of space to store them.

When I told the post office guy what had happened in my case, he said the driver told him it was bad day with hardly anyone home!

I would have loved to raise official complaints in both cases, but AusPost has deliberately structured its website to make it nigh on impossible to do that unless you have an account with them, as you would if you are a commercial user. The only alternative is to hang on the phone for an interminable period, which is something you only ever do once.

AusPost has added the courier Mail Call to its portfolio. Whether they continue to run it separately or just let Startrack Express swallow it is something we'll have to wait and see.