Re:Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers
by peter_l_downs on Monday May 14, 2012 @04:33PM
(#3973113)
First of all shipping companies are geared to service larger
business no the piss-ant customer that does 1-2 shipments per day.
There are automated solutions for all this stuff that makes it very
easy. No shipping company in their right mind would change their
workflow to make it easier to a "home" user.
Why they heck would they.
Re:Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers
by HeyLaughingBoy on Monday May 14, 2012 @05:23PM
(#3973380)
That's what businesses like PostNet and FedEx Kinko's are for. Take your package there to ship it if you don't want the hassle, or use their address to receive stuff. They will happily sign for your package and call you when it gets there.
Why is any of this a problem? Don't businesses like this exist in the UK?
Re:Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers
by georgespencer on Monday May 14, 2012 @05:44PM
(#3973510)
I've never seen one. We have the Post Office, but there's a good chance that the item is bulky, what with me wanting it sent via courier instead of just putting it in an envelope, so why should they assume that it's convenient for me to take it from my house to a store? What, you want me to pay for a taxi to your store when you guys have vans that drive around dropping off boxes all day long?
> Why is any of this a problem?
I agree. It's 2012. This can be done so much better.
Re:Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers
by onlawschool on Monday May 14, 2012 @05:39PM
(#3973487)
But I don't want to go to FedEx Kinkos to ship a package. I live in the city and its a pain in the ass to walk 5 blocks with a couple of big packages and stand in line at a Kinkos. I want shipping a package to be as simple as receiving a package. Then, I want to be able to receive more useful information on the package's status delivered in real time to my smartphone.
Re:Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers
by HeyLaughingBoy on Monday May 14, 2012 @11:34PM
(#3974746)
Then use the USPS. You can go online and print a label complete with postage and request a package pickup. Pickup doesn't cost anything.
Re:Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers
by tomkarlo on Monday May 14, 2012 @05:46PM
(#3973516)
"huge demand for reasonably-priced, "home"-user oriented shipping"
It doesn't matter how large the demand is if you can't do it profitably. And at the prices necessary to make money focusing on home shippers, you probably wouldn't have much demand.
Re:Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers
by azelfrath on Monday May 14, 2012 @04:31PM
(#3973099)
>As for the courier companies, every time they have to deal with a bad label or anything that requires a human to step in to help process the shipment you are slowing down the production line. Watch a couple videos of a Fedex or UPS sort facility to get an appreciation of what they deal with daily.
Vouch.
I worked as a FedEx loader/unloader for a year in college. We wear these cool wrist-mount computers with scanner rings to inventory the packages. A smudge, tear, wrinkle, or glossy tape can make reading the barcode a pain. When that happens you have to set the package aside, key in the numbers by hand, confirm the info, and then you can load it. Oh, and this is all while you are getting swamped with about 1 package every 3 seconds that might also need to go through this process.
Re:Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers
by georgespencer on Monday May 14, 2012 @05:41PM
(#3973495)
As another poster points out, I was advocating the creation of a better shipping company for human beings, not for companies who are addicted to the margins they make on shipping a gajillion parcels a year where they know the weight to a zillion decimal places so they can make a penny more on fuel costs.
Parcel dimensions are weights are important because the actual shipment cost calculation is based on cubed dimensional weights. So the package dimensions are important. It's a bit of an international thing between all the major couriers and post services. Normally the calculation is:
DHL: (L cm x W cm x H cm)/5000[2] or 4000[3] depending on certain import/country criteria
FedEx: (L cm x W cm x H cm)/6000 (new) or /5000 (old, still used in Asia) for international shipments, (L cm x W cm x H cm)/7000 for domestic shipments
UPS: (L cm x W cm x H cm)/6000 or /5000 depending on certain import/country criteria
The final change is based on the higher number of the actual weight or the dimensional weight.
Don't get me started on fuel surcharges.
Tracking numbers are can be large for a variety of reasons. Unique values being one of them but some companies keep them know for multiple years. And the numbers are assigned per piece you are shipping.
You make a lot of good points but the reality it all these companies make their money from corporations. And corporations for the most part automate the hell out their shipping solutions. As for the courier companies, every time they have to deal with a bad label or anything that requires a human to step in to help process the shipment you are slowing down the production line. Watch a couple videos of a Fedex or UPS sort facility to get an appreciation of what they deal with daily.