Hi,

having watched a program on string (not Strigfellow) theory, apparently
there are loads of other dimensions around which we can't see, but could if
we looked a little harder.

Supporting evidence for this abounds.

For instance, a parcel from Screwfix can arrive by Parcelforce overnight,
but a package from Toolbank via Businesspost (www.businesspost.biz) takes a
full week from order to delivery - ordered Friday delivered next Friday.

O.K. it came to Suffolk from Scotland but seven days?
It must have been artificially aged in holding tanks all down the country
for delivery this slow.

Parcelforce also lost all trace of a Screwfix shipment - shown as despatched
by Screwfix, but shown as not collected by Parcelforce.
This disappeared into limbo for two days, then turned up at the same time as
the replacement package.
It was correctly labelled and everything.

So I postulate a 'package limbo' dimension which must contain, on average,
at least 25% of all packages currently in transit.

Alternatively, the carriers deliberately delay orders with low cost shipping
options to make the higher price services seem attractive.

Let's face it - if Screwfix can deliver overnight for about £5.99 then other
suppliers should be able to match this - or get close as Screwfix will be a
premium customer with bulk discounts.

So overnight - spot on.
Smaller mail order supplier - 3 days max, usually 2.
'Parcel Post' services via PO or other supplier should not take 7 days.

Just as well I managed without the white Bostik Viking wall plugs I ordered
for fixing my wiring clips.
Still, stock replenished for the future.

Cheers
Dave R
--

So overnight - spot on.
Smaller mail order supplier - 3 days max, usually 2.
'Parcel Post' services via PO or other supplier should not take 7 days.

ebuyer have an interesting new slant on this.

Placed an order with them on monday for in stock items. Select
cheapest delivery charge, which, curiously, doesn't say 3 day
delivery, it says deliver by Friday 14th. Check order status next day,
says awaiting dispatch. Strange I think, if it's in stock why don't
they dispatch it?

Thursday, check order status again, still awaiting dispatch. Try to
ring them, no one seems to want to answer their expensive phone
number. Finally speak to someone and their reason for not dispatching
the parcel was that I had selected delivery on Friday; they would
dispatch on Thursday to be delivered Friday. (Wouldn't work for us; it
usually takes at least 2 days for next day delivery to get here)

So ebuyer have a new s$$m, they sit on your goods for several days
unless you pay them more.

Bill

But all suppliers are at the mercy of the carriers. Screwfix
deliveries here (somewhere in North Zummerzet, not too far from
Brizzle) are sometimes "next day" but often it takes an extra day
or two or three. Plan for three days maximum and it'll take four
or five, so the best plan is to order early and try to forget why
and when you needed the stuff until it or the credit card bill
comes through. Things you didn't really need but ordered anway
always come next day, however, sometimes as part delivery or a
larger order. The urgent items are sent in another parcel next
day, but arrive one week later.

Back in the golden days of National Carriers, extra dimensions
were not required. They simply routed stuff to the opposite end
of the country where, because the Caithness depot could not find
Bristol on the local route map (or vice versa) they dumped it
behind a pile of other awkward things they didn't know what to do
with, forgot it instantly, and thereby lost it for weeks, months
or forever.

You needed a despatch manager with the tenacity and manners of a
rabid pitbull to persuade them to (a) admit they ever had it, (b)
find it again, (c) deliver it intact before your customer, a
two-man sheet metal outift under a railway arch with decades of
faultless trading to its credit, went bankrupt due to the massive
penalty clause incurred by horrendously late delivery of the item
for which he needed your custom-made material with the the
two-month lead time.

W.

Amazon UK are just as bad. Spend over £25 and qualify for Super Saver (free)
Delivery.

Go to "My Basket" and see "Choose a delivery speed:"

FREE Super Saver Delivery 3-5 business days
First Class 1 business day

However, read the small print and Amazon say their free delivery is an
*additional* 3-5 days and this is only an estimate. I ordered some items
from them, chose the free delivery and it took almost a fortnight to arrive.
Amazon not very accomodation with my complaint that the "basket" options
were misleading. I wouldn't have minded but 6 business days plus their
contingency means 2 weeks in their book. (Pardon the pun).

Colin

In article , Woodspoiler
wrote:
But all suppliers are at the mercy of the carriers. Screwfix
deliveries here (somewhere in North Zummerzet, not too far
from Brizzle) are sometimes "next day" but often it takes an
extra day or two or three.

Given that they are only in Yeovil this must be a bit gutting.
But presumably 'in the interests of efficiency' everything gets
routed through their Derby depot or somesuch place!

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
Free SEDBUK boiler database browser
http://www.sda.co.uk/qsedbuk.htm

Colin M wrote:

Amazon UK are just as bad. Spend over £25 and qualify for Super Saver (free)
Delivery.

Go to "My Basket" and see "Choose a delivery speed:"

FREE Super Saver Delivery 3-5 business days
First Class 1 business day

However, read the small print and Amazon say their free delivery is an
*additional* 3-5 days and this is only an estimate. I ordered some items
from them, chose the free delivery and it took almost a fortnight to arrive.
Amazon not very accomodation with my complaint that the "basket" options
were misleading. I wouldn't have minded but 6 business days plus their
contingency means 2 weeks in their book. (Pardon the pun).



My worst ever experience was with Dixons online

They dispatched it via securicor, and the spam and porno spam associated
with the e-mail address I used to contact them was coming in two weeks
before securicor bothered to send it the last 20 miles from the local depot.

Their attitude was 'We are not going to get a bloke in a van to go 20
miles just to deliver one parcel'

Which is what I thought they were contracted to do actually.



Colin

wrote in message
...

So overnight - spot on.
Smaller mail order supplier - 3 days max, usually 2.
'Parcel Post' services via PO or other supplier should not take 7 days.

ebuyer have an interesting new slant on this.

Placed an order with them on monday for in stock items. Select
cheapest delivery charge, which, curiously, doesn't say 3 day
delivery, it says deliver by Friday 14th. Check order status next day,
says awaiting dispatch. Strange I think, if it's in stock why don't
they dispatch it?

Thursday, check order status again, still awaiting dispatch. Try to
ring them, no one seems to want to answer their expensive phone
number. Finally speak to someone and their reason for not dispatching
the parcel was that I had selected delivery on Friday; they would
dispatch on Thursday to be delivered Friday. (Wouldn't work for us; it
usually takes at least 2 days for next day delivery to get here)

So ebuyer have a new s$$m, they sit on your goods for several days
unless you pay them more.

I noticed this too - though I got my stuff a day early. Very different from
Dabs who say 3-5 days but is often next day.

I must admit though, if they sent everything out immediately and was
delivered next day, it would put the value down of paying for next day
delivery (which they probably make a profit on). You choose the delivery
date, and they will deliver by that date.

D

wrote in message ...

So overnight - spot on.
Smaller mail order supplier - 3 days max, usually 2.
'Parcel Post' services via PO or other supplier should not take 7 days.

ebuyer have an interesting new slant on this.

Placed an order with them on monday for in stock items. Select
cheapest delivery charge, which, curiously, doesn't say 3 day
delivery, it says deliver by Friday 14th. Check order status next day,
says awaiting dispatch. Strange I think, if it's in stock why don't
they dispatch it?

Thursday, check order status again, still awaiting dispatch. Try to
ring them, no one seems to want to answer their expensive phone
number. Finally speak to someone and their reason for not dispatching
the parcel was that I had selected delivery on Friday; they would
dispatch on Thursday to be delivered Friday. (Wouldn't work for us; it
usually takes at least 2 days for next day delivery to get here)

So ebuyer have a new s$$m, they sit on your goods for several days
unless you pay them more.

I've just had exactly the same experience with ebuyer.

In the meantime Rapid Electronics delivered in 14hrs (ordered by phone
7:30pm, delivered 9:30am next day) with FREE delivery on orders over
£25.

Similarly Farnell for orders over £10 deliver FREE and usually next
day.

Neither of these latter two are guaranteed next day but they rarely
fail.

Andrew

However, read the small print and Amazon say their free delivery is an
*additional* 3-5 days and this is only an estimate.

I ordered some books on free super saver delivery on Wednesday night (around
10pm). They arrived this morning. Presuming they don't dispatch at night
like Screwfix, that counts as next day delivery to me.

Christian.

wrote in message
...

So overnight - spot on.
Smaller mail order supplier - 3 days max, usually 2.
'Parcel Post' services via PO or other supplier should not take 7 days.

ebuyer have an interesting new slant on this.

Placed an order with them on monday for in stock items. Select
cheapest delivery charge, which, curiously, doesn't say 3 day
delivery, it says deliver by Friday 14th. Check order status next day,
says awaiting dispatch. Strange I think, if it's in stock why don't
they dispatch it?

Thursday, check order status again, still awaiting dispatch. Try to
ring them, no one seems to want to answer their expensive phone
number. Finally speak to someone and their reason for not dispatching
the parcel was that I had selected delivery on Friday; they would
dispatch on Thursday to be delivered Friday. (Wouldn't work for us; it
usually takes at least 2 days for next day delivery to get here)

So ebuyer have a new s$$m, they sit on your goods for several days
unless you pay them more.

Bill

My last order to ebyer was delivered the next day; the on line system still
said waiting to be processed for a further 3 days. I wonder what would have
happened if I'd cancelled it?

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

They dispatched it via securicor...
Their attitude was 'We are not going to get a bloke in a van to go 20
miles just to deliver one parcel'

Securicor spit.
Our firm would use them on and off, really really cheap (~£3 per package)
when you have an artic lorry load going out every day, but you end up paying
all the staff in your callcentre overtime sorting out all the sh*t.

Strangest courier delivery experience - getting radiators delivered one per
day as the bloke said it would otherwise fill up his van?

--
Toby.

'One day son, all this will be finished'

Tony Bryer wrote:
In article , Woodspoiler
wrote:
But all suppliers are at the mercy of the carriers. Screwfix
deliveries here (somewhere in North Zummerzet, not too far
from Brizzle) are sometimes "next day" but often it takes an
extra day or two or three.

Given that they are only in Yeovil this must be a bit gutting.
But presumably 'in the interests of efficiency' everything gets
routed through their Derby depot or somesuch place!

My stationery supplier rather stupidly posted me an order a few months back
(never did get a good reason why, normally they ring us and we collect) and
it went from their place to the local depot, from there to the main depot,
from there to a different main depot, from there back to the local depot and
finally to us. We reckoned it had done about 150 miles to get to us, from a
firm who are less than 2 miles away. We tracked it using the delivery firm's
tracking jobbie which gave us lots of info all the way through the 3 day
process, except for the reason why it sat in Norwich for 2 days.

--
James...
http://www.jameshart.co.uk/

Christian McArdle wrote:

However, read the small print and Amazon say their free delivery is an
*additional* 3-5 days and this is only an estimate.


I ordered some books on free super saver delivery on Wednesday night (around
10pm). They arrived this morning. Presuming they don't dispatch at night
like Screwfix, that counts as next day delivery to me.


I had my best ever mail order experience.

Sent an email to small supplier.
Got e-mail back at 8pm.

Answered it and requested he call me back to get c'card detail, or if
too late would phone next motrning,.

Forgot to phone, got call about 4pm, goods in letter box following
morning after a useful chat...

Sadly of no use to DIY'ers unless you like model plane construction..


Christian.

Toby wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

They dispatched it via securicor...
Their attitude was 'We are not going to get a bloke in a van to go 20

miles just to deliver one parcel'

Securicor spit.
Our firm would use them on and off, really really cheap (~£3 per package)
when you have an artic lorry load going out every day, but you end up paying
all the staff in your callcentre overtime sorting out all the sh*t.

Strangest courier delivery experience - getting radiators delivered one per
day as the bloke said it would otherwise fill up his van?



Two strange mail order experiences.

One getting second delivery 2 months after order of goods ordered at a
show. Can't remember the address of where to send them back, and no
paperowrk. *shrug*.

Other ordering three small garden plants, and getting a very large box
of serious fireworks instead. Should have kept mouth shut, but
eventually discovered that three small plants had probably gone to lady
in London expecting weapons of mass distraction isntead. Sadly they went
back, and small plants arrived instead :-(

"David W.E. Roberts" wrote in
:

Hi,

having watched a program on string (not Strigfellow) theory,
apparently there are loads of other dimensions around which we can't
see, but could if we looked a little harder.

Supporting evidence for this abounds.

I think that I have just found some evidence of the occupants of one of
these other dimensions.

B&Q offer a piece of counter top - 320mm x 2m - at the wonderful, knockdown
price of £45. (Well it seems very cheap compared with £21.99 for 600mm x 3m
for their own standard worktop, doesn't it?) And then offer to deliver it
for just £49.95.

Add to this the fact that their phone support say that it is 'normal stock'
but in the shops they say that it takes four weeks for delivery (to them).

Certainly not in my dimension.

Rod

In article ,
David W.E. Roberts wrote:
So overnight - spot on.
Smaller mail order supplier - 3 days max, usually 2.
'Parcel Post' services via PO or other supplier should not take 7 days.

I've found Parcel Post - ie the PO service - to be superb, so much so I
never use first class. Parcelforce is a prime example of privatization
gone wrong.

--
*If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 23:20:22 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman
wrote:

I've found Parcel Post - ie the PO service - to be superb, so much so I
never use first class. Parcelforce is a prime example of privatization
gone wrong.

It must be down to regional differences then, I've never had poor
service from Parcel Force since they went private, had nothing but
trouble before that.

I ask for stuff to come via them if that's an option, since I know
I'll get it, and in a timely fashion. Really odd how it varies.

I had a parcel come from Scotland: Ordered by phone late one friday
lunchtime 14:00-15:00Hrs, arrived at 06:40 Hrs next day! Boy was I
pleased to be knocked up at that time on a Saturday morning - it was
my only "lay in" of the week at the time. Now I don't get one, so they
can do that any old day of the week as far as I am concerned. Good
value for the £4.65 standard charge at the time. The supplier asked if
I wanted express delivery and I said I could not see the point; I
reckon that proves the point!

Take Care,
Gnube
{too thick for linux}

Have we done a full circle ?

Stuff used to move by train, but BR lost stuff in depots for weeks. This mixed in with the odd strike got us all using road.

Mow the road carries "loose" stuff, one decent strike and we will have to see if the country has any trains left ?

Rick

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 09:34:27 -0000, "David W.E. Roberts" wrote:
Hi,

having watched a program on string (not Strigfellow) theory, apparently
there are loads of other dimensions around which we can't see, but could if
we looked a little harder.

Supporting evidence for this abounds.

For instance, a parcel from Screwfix can arrive by Parcelforce overnight,
but a package from Toolbank via Businesspost (www.businesspost.biz) takes a
full week from order to delivery - ordered Friday delivered next Friday.

O.K. it came to Suffolk from Scotland but seven days?
It must have been artificially aged in holding tanks all down the country
for delivery this slow.

Parcelforce also lost all trace of a Screwfix shipment - shown as despatched
by Screwfix, but shown as not collected by Parcelforce.
This disappeared into limbo for two days, then turned up at the same time as
the replacement package.
It was correctly labelled and everything.

So I postulate a 'package limbo' dimension which must contain, on average,
at least 25% of all packages currently in transit.

Alternatively, the carriers deliberately delay orders with low cost shipping
options to make the higher price services seem attractive.

Let's face it - if Screwfix can deliver overnight for about £5.99 then other
suppliers should be able to match this - or get close as Screwfix will be a
premium customer with bulk discounts.

So overnight - spot on.
Smaller mail order supplier - 3 days max, usually 2.
'Parcel Post' services via PO or other supplier should not take 7 days.

Just as well I managed without the white Bostik Viking wall plugs I ordered
for fixing my wiring clips.
Still, stock replenished for the future.

Cheers
Dave R
--

Placed an order with them on monday for in stock items. Select cheapest
delivery charge, which, curiously, doesn't say 3 day delivery, it says
deliver by Friday 14th. Check order status next day, says awaiting
dispatch. Strange I think, if it's in stock why don't they dispatch it?

Thursday, check order status again, still awaiting dispatch. Try to ring
them, no one seems to want to answer their expensive phone number. Finally
speak to someone and their reason for not dispatching the parcel was that
I had selected delivery on Friday; they would dispatch on Thursday to be
delivered Friday. (Wouldn't work for us; it usually takes at least 2 days
for next day delivery to get here)

So ebuyer have a new s$$m, they sit on your goods for several days unless
you pay them more.

Bill

Interesting, I have exactly the same thing going on with ebuyer, ordered
router, delivery by Mon 17th Nov, it was despatched on Sat although
ordered on Weds. So deliver by, means on that date, as far as I can see.

Dave

--
And you were born knowing all about ms windows....??

wrote in message
...

So overnight - spot on.
Smaller mail order supplier - 3 days max, usually 2.
'Parcel Post' services via PO or other supplier should not take 7 days.

ebuyer have an interesting new slant on this.

Snip I must adnmit to having no problem with them but Eclipse Micro use a
delivery company that always seems to put a " you were not in this is the
second attempt at delivery" in the door however we never get a first
attempt card and sometime were were in anyway.!!!
My best delivery was Screwfix an order placed just before 6 one evening was
delivered at 09:00 the following day Yeovil to deepest Norfolk in 15 hours
not Bad!! Normally they are more like 36 hours though.

The Q

Interesting, I have exactly the same thing going on with ebuyer, ordered
router, delivery by Mon 17th Nov, it was despatched on Sat although
ordered on Weds. So deliver by, means on that date, as far as I can see.

Most orders i`ve made through ebuyer only get despatched the day before
its supposed to arrive.

--
Please add "[newsgroup]" in the subject of any personal replies via email
* old email address "btiruseless" abandoned due to worm-generated spam *
--- My new email address has "ngspamtrap" & @btinternet.com in it ;-) ---

Gnube wrote in message . ..
Snip Boy was I
pleased to be knocked up at that time on a Saturday morning - it was
my only "lay in" of the week at the time. Good
value for the £4.65 standard charge at the time.

Erm, is it just my dirty mind or do you need to read through your
posts before sending them!!

On 17 Nov 2003 04:05:44 -0800, (Matt Beard) wrote:

Gnube wrote in message . ..
Snip Boy was I
pleased to be knocked up at that time on a Saturday morning - it was
my only "lay in" of the week at the time.
Damn, some of what Gnube wrote does not seem as amusing
as would have suited me, so I'll just chop about at Gnube's words
here and there in a vain attempt to subvert what people think he wrote
no one will notice eh!? :OP
Good value for the £4.65 standard charge at the time.


Erm, is it just my dirty mind or do you need to read through your
posts before sending them!!

But I did read through it first, It seems the problem must be up your
end! ;O)

Take Care,
Gnube
{too thick for linux}