scrubbedexpat020

We are typically seeing 3 weeks for mail from UK to Aus (Melbourne), and about a week for Aus to UK. Is that what you are noticing, or is it just us?

Pollyana

Got three items yesterday, 2 letters and a small packet. The latter took 3 weeks, 1 letter took 3 weeks. The other took six weeks. In 14 years I've never known it this slow.

quoll

The piece of string is 6 inches long!

Oops - no, seriously, I'm not sure there is a hard and fast time frame at the moment. We generally allow 3 weeks for parcels and it's been thereabouts for quite some time now, cards 7-10 days. We sent the granddaughter's birthday present (for Saturday) at just under the 3 weeks hoping it would arrive on time but it got there 8 days ago so just 10 days this time. I think it's actually in inverse proportion to the urgency of the parcel - there's probably a mind reading machine which determines if it's urgent and important in which case it goes on the slow boat but if it's trivial and non urgent it's sent express!

I think Aus - UK is quite quick at the mo, our son often sends stuff that takes mere days to arrive

Pollyana

Aus to UK seems about average at present 3-5 days.

The other way though, from the UK is truly dire. Like I said, I have never known it this bad. Over the years its been between 3 days and 2-3 weeks, but at present nothing seems to come through in under 3 weeks, even basic letters. Its been like this for about 2 months, driving ebay sellers up the wall.

spouse of scouse

I've been in the UK for 2 years, my parcels and letters back to Perth take a minimum of 3 weeks. Delivery times for last year's Christmas cards were 4 to 8 weeks!

moneypenny20

In the past I've had stuff sent UK to Aus and it's arrived in 4/5 days. The same going the other way. Recently things are taking over a month. It's mad. No idea if it's Royal Mail or Aus Post but it pisses me off.

Pollyana

I've had several periods when mail UK-Brisbane and back again only takes 3 days each way, thats like heaven. Trouble is that it doesn't last!

Did you hear my best story? When I first came here I worked as a casual at Northgate Sorting Office for Aus Post. Lots of automated sorting, and the machines have vertical conveyor belts to move the letters, the mail stays on them because of the speed they move. If the belts stop, the mail falls off - either into the right bin (by chance) the wrong bin, or just onto the floor. The priority, I was told,was to just get the belt going again, no time to retrieve mail, it would just stay where it had fallen. And the floor was well covered with envelopes. On Christmas Eve there was a catastrophic failure, we were told an engineer had to come out and it would mean hours offline. So they opened the doors and told us to retrieve the fallen mail.
One envelope was mine!! It was the last card I sent to my then fiance to say I had finally moved out of my flat, prior to emigrating. Posted on October 16th.
The only comment by our supervisor was - by glad its not in that one over there, that hasn't broken down for SIX YEARS.

Never trusted Aus Post since then, total lack of respect for any mail in their system, and total lack of care for the public who deal with them.

Pollyana

Feedback from fellow ebay sellers seems to indicate its largely the Aus Post end - things can get here in a few days but then take weeks to go round Australia. Similar to postage within Aus, selling something to WA from brisbane regularly takes 3-4 weeks and at present even the Gold Coast is 2-3 weeks to deliver. Thats letter-sized stuff, parcels can be even longer.

spuddyo

Australia Post are in a position to make a fortune with Ebay and Online shopping in General, but instead of offering a great service they are driving customers away. A bit like our local Fish and Chip shop that closes at 5pm.

rammygirl

Pretty sure it is either Auspost or customs causing the delay.
My son ordered something from the UK and my husband something from Melbourne on the same afternoon. We are in Adelaide.
Sons parcel arrived by private courier in three days. Hubbies over two weeks after dispatch notice which in itself was three days after order.

Reacting to my surprise on receiving sons parcel so soon delivery man said. " well this isn't by Auspost!"

Wait till amazon gets here, bet they won't be using Auspost unless it gets better.

GarryP

Yep, if you happen to have tracking you can see when it leaves the UK. That's usually in the 3 day type timeframe. Then it hits customs / auspost and it both disappears, and slows to a crawl.

It'll never get better until it starts costs those two for their failure. Problem is, once they start trying to charge GST on all imports, it'll get worse.

Ozzie suggest he thinks auspost have the amazon contract. I hope to hell he's wrong - because they are useless enough as it is.

scrubbedexpat020

So Auspost is the bottleneck? Wife got so fed-up with her latest birthday cards arriving late she has complained to RM. Looking forward to seeing what they say.

GarryP

Actually I'd guess it's the customs lot. Sure auspost don't help, but customs, and particularly sydney customs, seems to be the common element. Couriers pay for faster customs clearance, which is why they can get parcels through in hours. Auspost things just get thrown in a queue, which one of these muppets might eventually get round to.

sr71

My guess is Australia Post, or something on the Australian side. I'm in NZ now and in the last few months have had quite a lot of mail sent from the UK - it arrives in less than a week, in some cases a couple of days. (Ordered Tue evening and arrived on Fri)

When I lived in Australia it seem to take weeks, even mail from NZ took a couple of weeks.

quiltman

Just as bad here! Philpost is rubbish. Mail from UK gets to Manila within 4/5 days then can take weeks to travel the last 400 miles to Cebu , ( maybe not at all if it looks like it may contain something of value!) then will sit in the PO until you go get it. No indication anythings arrived unless you have an "agreement" with the post master to text you! We have 2 posties for 300,000 people in our town so really only business mail gets delivered. We are lucky in that one of our subdivision guards visit the PO daily and then distributes any mail to the appropriate house. To UK can take from 10 days to weeks. anything valuable or important we always send by courier which takes 4/5 days but does at least get there!The utility companies physically deliver the bills to your property otherwise they would never get paid due to "I never got a bill" syndrome. My bank also delivers statements by hand!