I know...delivery services make a lot of e-commerce possible
and make available many things I cannot source locally. But
sometimes not everything goes right.
Here are my two experiences just this week:
- Shipping service made one single delivery attempt. Since the
retailer sent the wrong tracking number, no one was home to
accept the package and I had to drive 30km to pick it up.
The whole point of having it delivered was to avoid driving
30km to the store.
- Shipping company delivered to a neighbour's house. Normally not
too bad except when the package is unwieldy and weighs over 100 pounds.
Anyone with shipping stories to share?
Cheers,
Dennis
and make available many things I cannot source locally. But
sometimes not everything goes right.
Here are my two experiences just this week:
- Shipping service made one single delivery attempt. Since the
retailer sent the wrong tracking number, no one was home to
accept the package and I had to drive 30km to pick it up.
The whole point of having it delivered was to avoid driving
30km to the store.
- Shipping company delivered to a neighbour's house. Normally not
too bad except when the package is unwieldy and weighs over 100 pounds.
Anyone with shipping stories to share?
Cheers,
Dennis
I ordered $24 of stuff from monoprice.com on a Saturday, and I wanted the stuff really fast so I paid $33 for DHL 2-day shipping.
(This may seem insane, but I priced out the same goods on Amazon.ca and the total came to over $100CAD)
Anyway... monoprice does not process orders on the weekend, and then there was some sort of delay which resulted in my order being packed by monoprice on Monday night, just before midnight.
DHL didn't pick up the package until 2pm on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, I got an e-mail from DHL informing me that I owed them $18 and change for import duties, fees, etc. (on $24 of goods). Oh, and the stuff would stay at the border until I paid the fee online.
I received the goods on Friday, but not at my home. I had to drive to the depot to pick it up.
So, I paid $52 for 2-day shipping of $24 of goods, which took 1 week to receive.
$76 for $24 worth of stuff (patch panel, CAT5e patch cables, etc.)
The only reason I did not completely lose my mind is because I still got the stuff way cheaper than anywhere else.
Nuts. I know.
(This may seem insane, but I priced out the same goods on Amazon.ca and the total came to over $100CAD)
Anyway... monoprice does not process orders on the weekend, and then there was some sort of delay which resulted in my order being packed by monoprice on Monday night, just before midnight.
DHL didn't pick up the package until 2pm on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, I got an e-mail from DHL informing me that I owed them $18 and change for import duties, fees, etc. (on $24 of goods). Oh, and the stuff would stay at the border until I paid the fee online.
I received the goods on Friday, but not at my home. I had to drive to the depot to pick it up.
So, I paid $52 for 2-day shipping of $24 of goods, which took 1 week to receive.
$76 for $24 worth of stuff (patch panel, CAT5e patch cables, etc.)
The only reason I did not completely lose my mind is because I still got the stuff way cheaper than anywhere else.
Nuts. I know.
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My daughter got a package from China last week; when she opened it a bloody great cricket jumped out.... never seen her move so fast ....
I once received a 300*200*150mm box with .... one 5W resistor in it.
Thankfully, shipping was included in the resistor price (2€).
Thankfully, shipping was included in the resistor price (2€).
I get this a lot with packages from the USA..
They charge $40 or more for shipping which is rediculous as it is (Once I was quoted $850 USD for a shoebox-sized item)
My best package story would have to be the courier which NEVER delivers to your house, they actually have a company policy whereby you have to ring this number which is left on a piece of cardboard thats left in your letterbox, then arrange an APPOINTMENT TIME for you to go and pickup your package from the DEPOT which is 40-50km away.
The courier guy is the flash, seriously, I would be sitting comfortably right next to the ******* door and the guy would come up to the door and put a piece of carboard in the door, then run off and hit the gas fierce.
If I ever catch the son of a bitch I'm going to cut off his balls and mail them to his mum in the same way.
Thankfully I've never had to deal with that company anymore.
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Yeah its a good idea to quarantine things sometimes. lol
Once I got a bottle of olive tree seeds from Jerusalem and a great big (1cm wide) olive fruit fly was inside the bottle with a completely empty abdomen, I put it inside a clear plastic bag and re-opened the bottle then sprayed fly spray in there.
The seller said that he quarantines the seeds for 30 days before shipping them out.. I guess not...
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Yep. Courier/mail people are one of two types. 1) the flash, as you described, and 2) this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q6_9A90cUk
I'm afraid to open my mail now, thanks for that 🙂
I could rant for days over ridiculous customs charges, most recent of which was a $60 item i bought from Canada with ~$40 shipping. In theory i should pay 23% duty on the total which would be another $23 but the seller neglected to declare the shipping cost on the shipping label. So what do Irish customs do? they ring the courier company and get the cost to send the item back to the sender and use that as a basis to calculate the duty. UPS cost to ship said item from Ireland to Canada? that would be $160.
Years ago I actually tried chasing down a UPS truck with my
package on it. No luck...
In my most recent run in with them, I ended up buying a trolly
and my neighbour helped me load and unload that big box.
Fortunately neither of us appeared injured in the process.
What the hell is wrong with Mouser.com btw?
I want to buy a quad of AD797 Opamps. four tiny little chips.Quoted $40 shipping.
I want to buy a quad of AD797 Opamps. four tiny little chips.Quoted $40 shipping.
I buy a bit from RS Components.
Everything is in a plastic bag then placed in a paper bag.
Then often it comes in the bottom of a large box.
One big gripe I have with them is production packaging of components on paper tape.
Pulling the component off the tape always ends up with a bit of tape still stuck on the component legs. No matter how I try I cant get the last bit of tape off so I end up having to chop the component legs down to get rid of the tape.
Many years ago I put in a component with a little bit of tape on a leg and the joint ended up dry.
I used to use Farnell quite a bit until one day I got a small order and 2 of the 4 components ordered were the right component but wrong value !
I of course assumed they were right and soldered them into amplifier pcb's.
Of course none of them worked so I had to through the whole pcb checking each component.
I must have spent 2 hours finding the problem and then fixing it.
Farnell refused to pay for my time and just wanted to replace the wrong components. Even then I had to stop in for a full day waiting for a courier service to pick up the wrong components.
Since then I just order from RS Components. At least they have the decency to completely miss a component instead of sending the wrong component.
Everything is in a plastic bag then placed in a paper bag.
Then often it comes in the bottom of a large box.
One big gripe I have with them is production packaging of components on paper tape.
Pulling the component off the tape always ends up with a bit of tape still stuck on the component legs. No matter how I try I cant get the last bit of tape off so I end up having to chop the component legs down to get rid of the tape.
Many years ago I put in a component with a little bit of tape on a leg and the joint ended up dry.
I used to use Farnell quite a bit until one day I got a small order and 2 of the 4 components ordered were the right component but wrong value !
I of course assumed they were right and soldered them into amplifier pcb's.
Of course none of them worked so I had to through the whole pcb checking each component.
I must have spent 2 hours finding the problem and then fixing it.
Farnell refused to pay for my time and just wanted to replace the wrong components. Even then I had to stop in for a full day waiting for a courier service to pick up the wrong components.
Since then I just order from RS Components. At least they have the decency to completely miss a component instead of sending the wrong component.
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I get my pcb's from China.
About a third the price of the UK and 2 weeks from order to receiving the pcb's. Always had good service despite being small orders.
In about 1980 I used to buy kits and components from Maplin electronics.
It was a complete lottery as to what arrived.
Out of maybe 20 components 2 or 3 would be out of stock.
My first attempt at 50 watt amplifier resulted in all the components arriving except for a pcb. Due to my impatience I built it up as a rats nest.
Of course it just fried as I probably hadn't connected it up right.
Anyway when the pcb eventually came through I built it up and it worked first time.
Quite amazing as that was before I became an electronics engineer and had little idea about electronics. I guess it was just placing components in a pcb and soldering them so shouldn't have been too difficult.
It was a complete lottery as to what arrived.
Out of maybe 20 components 2 or 3 would be out of stock.
My first attempt at 50 watt amplifier resulted in all the components arriving except for a pcb. Due to my impatience I built it up as a rats nest.
Of course it just fried as I probably hadn't connected it up right.
Anyway when the pcb eventually came through I built it up and it worked first time.
Quite amazing as that was before I became an electronics engineer and had little idea about electronics. I guess it was just placing components in a pcb and soldering them so shouldn't have been too difficult.
I have filled my shopping cart so many times on Mouser.ca, only to completely jump ship when I get to the end and get a shipping quote.
I went into the local Sears store to buy a piece of gym equipment. It was out of stock, but the sales guy said they would deliver one to my house with free shipping. I get an order number and a web address to track the order.
Several days later the order is still marked "pending" so I assumed that it hasn't shipped yet.
One afternoon I heard a loud crash, so I look outside to see the UPS truck driving away. The delivery guy had attempted to drag the 79 pound box up the driveway, but couldn't get it to the front door, so he just dropped it where he was, gave up and left.
The box had split open and several metal parts had escaped. Nothing was damaged though.
Several days later the order is still marked "pending" so I assumed that it hasn't shipped yet.
One afternoon I heard a loud crash, so I look outside to see the UPS truck driving away. The delivery guy had attempted to drag the 79 pound box up the driveway, but couldn't get it to the front door, so he just dropped it where he was, gave up and left.
The box had split open and several metal parts had escaped. Nothing was damaged though.
An ex colleague of mine early in his career ordered some capacitors.
However he got the decimal point wrong in the value.
A lorry turned up with capacitors the size of buckets !
However he got the decimal point wrong in the value.
A lorry turned up with capacitors the size of buckets !
I haven't noticed the problem specifically with Mouser, but that seems to be a general problem with our present-day "buy it online" culture. I recently bought $7.10 worth of IC's directly from Linear Technology (LTC5505's, to be specific) and the UPS Ground "cheap and slow" shipping option cost $7.01.
Dale
p.s. - Even though I bought only 5 of the IC's, I think the per unit cost direct from Linear was what a distributor would charge if I bought 100 pieces.
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Several component manufacturers have their own on-line "stores" where you can buy small to moderate quantities of their products. I think it's typically anything from single units, up to a reel or two. (I suspect they don't want to look like they're competing with their own distributors.)
In my experience, it takes a day or two to process your order even if you opt for expedited delivery. The per-unit prices are at least reasonable - in several cases they seem to use the per-unit price as if you're buying 100 pieces, even though you're buying only a few. I have no idea how charges may stack up if they know it's an international order.
Dale
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