Last weekend, I ordered several t-shirts from the online store at ThinkGeek. They have great stuff for the average nerd – like myself – and it’s all good quality.
At checkout time, I selected UPS for delivery, as it was a little cheaper than the DHL option. No big deal – only a few dollars difference, but hey, a few dollars is a few dollars. Since the order, I’ve kept an intermittent eye on their shipment tracking page, just to see where my shirts were at.
Now, here’s my question. The package arrives in Ascot Vale (Melbourne) at 10:12am yesterday morning. By 1:00pm, it is listed as “IN TRANSIT FOR DELIVERY”. Then all of a sudden, come 4:11pm, it’s been accepted at Mascot (Sydney) – which is about 900 kilometres from Ascot Vale! Why?
And of course, at 6:09am this morning, it has completed its round trip back to Ascot Vale – (and another 900 kilometres), before hitting the road at 6:35am for actual delivery at 9:44am.
Now, the cost of my one single individual parcel travelling via air to Sydney and back is probably only a couple of dollars to UPS, but does this happen to every single parcel? It only has to be a shipment of a few hundred packages every single day, and these “couple of dollars” for each parcel adds up!
Surely it’s better for their bottom line to be a little better organised? Just seems a waste of time, money, and effort to me.