We send a lot of things out every day with both royal mail and UPS. UPS we find 99.9% of the time all goes well. I guess much of this comes down to tracking and the extra cost this can incur. Royal mail again on the whole do a good job, but we do have a few issues with them from time to time.
The latest I though I would share with you. We send lots to Ireland (you know the place quite close to the mainland UK) without problems. Small packets work out quite reasonable to send and make there way without problems. But the last one we sent had a little detour, take a look at the photos, Ireland has moved to Australia. Luckily it got sorted quite quickly and our kind customer saw the funny side, but its amazing how do you mix up Ireland (look at the address label) and Australia. And why would Australian customs open it up when its not for the country?
Bizarre
If ever need any sending via NZ mate, just ask…I’ll send it back…honest 😉
It’s the new Royal Mail initiative involving sending all ‘local’ mail via large distribution centres in another city to be sorted, and then back again for delivery. It seems the system has worked so well that they must have deemed to extend it and have opened a super duper sorting office in Oz to make things even ‘more efficient’ for UK/Ireland mail 😉 Impressive!
Australian Customs open everything sent from overseas.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43733863@N00/3509870874/
It worries me the most that they have a rubber stamp for the occasion! That’s not a one off, that’s a “well, this happens enough for us to have a custom rubber stamp made!”.
AQIS do a good job!