Is there any logic to courier services?

[RossJarvis]

I know they have to operate "hubs" and try to efficientise everything. But I am sad and like to track my deliveries, sometimes hoping things'll get to me eventually. But how do they work their routes out? I ordered something on Friday from Guildford, which is about 20 miles up the A3 from me. UPS then took it to Crawley which is the wrong direction completely, similar latitude but the wrong way, now it's gone to Barking which is the wrong side of London, it'll be knackered by the time I get it.

I bought something from the US earlier in the year, it took 3 days to go from the bottom left of Lake Michigan to the bottom right, had a rest for 3 days, headed to New England, then took a trip to New York, where it went sight-seeing for 4 days and then flew to Heathrow, where it got depressed for a further 2 days, then it went to somewhere like Nottingham and then they brought it back down to near Portsmouth.

Are all these lorries we see everywhere these days taking stuff the wrong way, or is it only a percentage? Maybe if they send everything everywhere, it'll get somewhere in the end.

 

[MMUK]

Parcelfarce is typical of this. I had a parcel sent from Birmingham. First it went to Stoke, then Preston (about ten miles away), then Chester, then Manchester, then Clitheroe. I live just outside Mellor (not far from Carl Foggarty who's a mate of mine) so it passed me at least twice before it was delivered.

 

[Racers]

Ross, did it have time to dry out after its trip to the bottom of lake Michigan?

MMUK does Carl have any old Ducatis he wants to get rid of?

Pete

 

[MMUK]

Pete, get in the queue

 

[bellringer]

It all to do with central hubs and how it going to get to the destination

 

[Peter Sefton]

No

 

[RossJarvis]

Well then, today it went from Barking to Eastleigh, so probably drove past the house on its way, and from Eastleigh it came here. Routeplanner said it's travelled 237 miles, wher-as it was only 23 miles from here when it set off.

MMUK, I hope I'm in front of Pete for the Ducati, but I suppose I'm behind you, it looks like he's going to push in anyway. How many spare bikes does Foggy have?

 

[mseries]

It's to do with full loads. The real cost of the transportation is to do with the vehicle that moves it and all the other parcels that they move around. You might think door to door by a dedicated man and vehicle is most efficient, it is in terms of time but now think about the other 200 parcels to be moved around.

I tracked my new TV, it went from East Yorkshire to Rochdale, almost certainly on the M62 and within one mile of my house

so yes. There is lots and lots of logic, so much that it seems illogical.

 

[woodfarmer]

My Real gripe is with Amazon UK. when they send stuff to me in France all goes well until it gets to their hub in France. Then they lose it. Really , out of about 8 deliveries I am lucky if I get more than 1. To such an extent they sent me warning emails about ME losing their parcels. I don't order from from them any more unless it is to go to a UK address. The really mind boggling thing is If I order from Amazon France or Amazon USA They arrive with no problems at all. I ordered a 23 litre pressure canner from Amazon USA one Wednesday evening. It was here the Friday morning. Amzon UK sent 4 Humax boxes, before I actually got one, The rest were eventually returned to them by their carrier as undeliverable. We live on a farm and are always here. The Humax box is great, so I got our second one for the other room from Argos when we were back in the UK. They wont admit they have a problem, so I can't order from them.

 

[Jonzjob]

I'm surprised to hear that you have problems with Amazon uk? We get quite a lot from them, including the MacBook I'm using now and the iMac we have.

The only problem that we have had was a 4 Tb NASS box I ordered from them. When I opened it up to have a nose inside it there was only a single 2 Tb disk in it. I phoned Amazon and there was a replacement on its way straight away. All I have to do was repack the 2 Tb one and fix their returns label on the box. I had to pay for the postage and that was refunded by them. It wasn't their fault either. The box was designated as a 4 Tb unit but there was just the one disk.

They are also very quick and delivered by La Poste and our friendly postman. If we miss a delivery that won't fit in our letter box then we are notified and collect from the village La Poste the following day. Dead easy..

 

[bobblezard]

My favourite recently was UPS who (twice!?) photographed my front door to prove they had turned up but failed to put a card through to contact them - by the time I did (five days after ordering) they had sent my items back to the vendor...

 

[Hivenhoe]

Well then, today it went from Barking to Eastleigh, so probably drove past the house on its way, and from Eastleigh it came here. Routeplanner said it's travelled 237 miles, wher-as it was only 23 miles from here when it set off.

MMUK, I hope I'm in front of Pete for the Ducati, but I suppose I'm behind you, it looks like he's going to push in anyway. How many spare bikes does Foggy have?

Nice to see they're all working hard to keep their carbon footprint down

 

[woodfarmer]

I'm surprised to hear that you have problems with Amazon uk? We get quite a lot from them, including the MacBook I'm using now and the iMac we have.

The only problem that we have had was a 4 Tb NASS box I ordered from them. When I opened it up to have a nose inside it there was only a single 2 Tb disk in it. I phoned Amazon and there was a replacement on its way straight away. All I have to do was repack the 2 Tb one and fix their returns label on the box. I had to pay for the postage and that was refunded by them. It wasn't their fault either. The box was designated as a 4 Tb unit but there was just the one disk.

They are also very quick and delivered by La Poste and our friendly postman. If we miss a delivery that won't fit in our letter box then we are notified and collect from the village La Poste the following day. Dead easy..

I have a sneaking suspicion that their drivers use a garmin satnav. Although the farm has been here for over 150 years, Garmin have misspelt the name. would be a bit like having to find London bye entering Lodnon. I have found the garmin is a sod for naming something wrongly here in France and the maps are about 14-15 years at least out of date. The odd thing is I have no problems with La Poste, UPS, Amazon USA or France.

 

[MMUK]

would be a bit like having to find London bye entering Lodnon.

Or how about

 

[Jonzjob]

Naa MM that would nly be a problem ia a backward dr3 dlrow country :mrgreen:

 

[bugbear]

It's to do with full loads. The real cost of the transportation is to do with the vehicle that moves it and all the other parcels that they move around. You might think door to door by a dedicated man and vehicle is most efficient, it is in terms of time but now think about the other 200 parcels to be moved around.

I tracked my new TV, it went from East Yorkshire to Rochdale, almost certainly on the M62 and within one mile of my house

so yes. There is lots and lots of logic, so much that it seems illogical.

+this.

If you want to know more, you need to study (or, more casually google) an interesting field of maths/comp sci called network theory.

BugBear

 

[Losos]

My Real gripe is with Amazon UK. when they send stuff to me in France all goes well until it gets to their hub in France. Then they lose it. Really , out of about 8 deliveries I am lucky if I get more than 1. To such an extent they sent me warning emails about ME losing their parcels. I don't order from from them any more unless it is to go to a UK address. The really mind boggling thing is If I order from Amazon France or Amazon USA They arrive with no problems at all. I ordered a 23 litre pressure canner from Amazon USA one Wednesday evening. It was here the Friday morning. Amzon UK sent 4 Humax boxes, before I actually got one, The rest were eventually returned to them by their carrier as undeliverable. We live on a farm and are always here. The Humax box is great, so I got our second one for the other room from Argos when we were back in the UK. They wont admit they have a problem, so I can't order from them.

We have a farm in Czech Republic. I've given up on Amazon UK as well, in fact I've virtually given up on all UK firms sending stuff to this part of Europe. I'm pretty much convinced that the problem is the way the parcel is addressed, UK firms seem to be incapable of spellling the house name correctly never mind the village or even the country (I've had Cheque Republic, Check Republic, Xech Republic and many more :roll: ) and of course they NEVER put the post code in the right place (Should be on the same line as the Post Town) this is the standard for the whole of Europe but they never get it right :x

My advice is (where possible) order from Germany, Dick Tools for example have a lovely lady to answer your call who speaks English better than most of the telesales people in England, they always know what is in stock, and if it is in stock it gets delivered within three days. Same applies to almost every German firm I deal with, and people wonder why they are prospering when the rest of Europe is going down the tubes.

 

[mind_the_goat]

I ordered a new laptop from work.
Sent from China to London, then an overnighter to Frankfurt, then to Southampton where it was put in a truck and delivered to me in Dorset.
If I recall correctly it took just over 24 hours for the whole trip.