exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

It's a bit of a strange one but I was talking to my UK PCB supplier about a week ago. Basically he was saying that he cannot find a good courier any more because they are all "white van men" these days.

Kind of like Evri which depend on the general public for delivering packages which is the lottery at the best of times. But like my PCB guy was saying, even going for a courier like fexex,ups etc is not tending to yield any different results any more anyway. Basically he seems to have gone through the lot.

The idea of going with a more expensive courier is you should get better service, but it doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

I don't think it's entirely true though because when I book a package with UPS, they tend to pickup and deliver with a UPS van. But its not the case in other areas.

He was actually considering going to Royal mail because at least Royal mail still currently have their own people delivering packages. Which also as the issuer was still people still bubbly don't care about handling packages anyway..

But the point was being that there seems little difference between paying for Evri and paying more for a courier like UPS, fedex etc anymore ?

I can't remember the last time I had a UPS package delivered by a UPS liveried van, it's been random (super hans) men with ven (/super hans).

They're all just as bad as each other and your experience is heavily reliant upon your local people handling the packages.
I've got nothing but praise for our local Evri and royal mail people.
In the surrounding villages, they have constant problems with packages being delivered to random addresses or post not being delivered for weeks on end as the posties have disappeared.

Yeah my girlfriend has packages delivered with evri without trouble. For me, currently not bad. But had nothing but trouble a couple years ago. People 1 mile away, nothing but complaints of packages going missing and being delivered to wrong streets.

This was part of why paying more for a courier got around those problems but these days they no better. It's just a crapshoot of who you get in what areas. I never had problems with ups. But my PCB guy would never use them again. Similarly with others.

We still have a DHL guy who's normally the same bloke and shows up in the uniform in a yellow van but even their UK operation has been bought out by Evri/Hermes now!

I used to think DPD were the best of the mid-range bunch, but I've heard bad things about them too.

BW

Parcel Force. I've shipped with them countless times and it is always been Parcel Force who collect and Parcel Force who drop off. The driver has always been in uniform.

I'm not endorsing them, just saying this is a courier where you get who you paid for.