Special delivery! Could be your courier service.
Door-to-door courier service versus traditional local
shopping
Courier service is an important necessity of life if you are
like me - disabled and living in a remote community. Even getting to our
local village is an effort not that such an expenditure of energy is
rewarded with much in the way of selection of goods available for
purchase. Accordingly I use a courier service and the internet to supply
me with my needs.
Even if I wasn't disabled it would still be no easy matter to get goods
home. Many local companies can't be bothered to make a door-to-door delivery to a
rural area so the proximity of their shop compared to one in the UK (for
example) becomes irrelevant. We may as well investigate the cost of
shipping something internationally as from 30. If you take into
account the strong Euro and also the more commercial attitude of the
British, it can often work out cheaper to buy from abroad. Also, the VAT
rate is lower in the UK (17.5%) compared to Italy where we live (20%).
When I am looking for a new product, it does take a little effort to
find companies which will use an overseas courier service although the
number which will comply is increasing. Unfortunately not all courier
service companies are equal and, from both the point of view of the
recipient and the sender there can be a world of difference between good
and bad.
For example, if you despatch goods abroad, it is difficult to know
whether they actually arrived or not unless the courier service offers a
tracking facility. Some do, some don't and some charge the sender a lot
more for the privilege. Without tracking, it is a question of the sender
trusting the customer when they claim that the goods did not arrive. I
have had to call shops on several occasions to ask for goods to be
resent and I hate sounding suspicious "That guy in Italy's asking us to
send him another ..." - always the implication that I am after
two for the price of one.
Another problem can arise when the courier service transfers goods or
stores them. It seems that our delivery is always the one that is given
to the trainee forklift driver to practice on or, alternatively, voted
the most football-shaped object and used accordingly. One of the worst
things about the delivery is that you are not allowed to inspect the
goods - either you sign to say they arrived in perfect condition
(without being allowed to open any of the boxes) or they whisk them
straight back onto the lorry.
Worst of all, though, is trying to despatch goods outside of the
European Union. Even though the dollar is very weak and it is a strong
temptation not to take full advantage and order stuff from the USA, it
must be borne in mind that your delivery will pass under the full and
unsupervised control of Customs who seem to delight in their rough
handling of the contents - not only that you don't get to see how much
damage they have done to your goods until you have paid duty to the
courier service. On that subject, it is a good idea to get the sender to
include an invoice with the parcel. If you don't do that duty tax will
be levied based on the value that a customs officer perceives it to be
worth - thus possibly voiding your hard-earned bargain.
Despite all that, I wouldn't be able to stay here without our local
courier service.
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