Post Fail

I need to rant...

Online shopping in the past few years has become pretty awesome, in fact to the point where you could easily buy 90% of everything you need without ever having to leave the house. Websites are easier to use and payment is quick and less risky than before things such as Paypal. However, there remains the problem of delivery. Most delivery firms are, I have decided, incompetent, unhelpful and while attempting to introduce web-based or automated features are still not addressing the main problems.

I thought some companies were ok but I have had shit service from DHL and HDNL to name a couple, and everyone else thinks Royal Mail are rubbish (although I would say they are the best of a bad bunch). One of the main problems is their inability to specify a delivery time, just stating the day on which it will arrive is useless for anyone who does any kind of work. Secondly even if you can rearrange a delivery and find a day that you are willing to waste, I have had a least three occasions where I have waited in only for them to fail to turn up. This is totally unacceptable - you don't expect when paying for something for your credit card to say "oh wait sorry can't sell you that but we'll charge you anyway and maybe you can get it some other time". You then try to contact the branch at which your parcel is being held, but this is basically impossible because they only give you a phone number for the central services. Finally on deciding to go and fetch the parcel yourself you realise that the depot is miles away and nowhere near any kind of sensible public transport and even if you do get there, it has just defeated one of the points of shopping online in the first place.

Rant over. Now someone sort out a better postal service.