A new eBay produced report on shipping and postage has revealed Australia Post is making good on its promise to extend the availability of parcel pick-up locations.
Post’s trial of the new parcel pick-up locations was unveiled late last year with the unveiling of parcel lockers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
According to the eBay publication, called The Shipping Report, online shoppers have embraced the new lockers.
Online shoppers who register at Post can choose, instead of home delivery, to pick-up their purchase from the lockers.
The lockers are accessible 24 hours a day and an SMS or email is sent when an item is ready for collection.
Post will be extending the service to ten sites around Australia by mid 2012, said the report, and a national roll-out is being considered.
The lockers service complements the new Post Office Box lockers for parcels, which are already in 26 locations around Australia.
Post managing director, Ahmed Fahour said that Post had worked closely with eBay for the last couple of years to create new parcel delivery services specifically suited to the needs of Australians who are buying and selling online.
“The delivery service that Australia Post provides is one of the most important components of the ecommerce experience, and an online retailer’s last touch point with their customer.”
Post appears to have announced a new online tracking service for online shoppers in this report.
Called ‘my deliveries’ the free service is available at www.auspost.com.au/mydeliveries.
It offers various tools to manage parcel deliveries, including rescheduling and re-direction of parcels whilst in transit.
Also noteworthy in this new eBay report are the experiences of various local eBay merchants.
Scott Palmer, founder of the Lismore based HARDWARE2U business, told eBay that efficient delivery is his biggest challenge.
“We spend a fair chunk of our lives chasing freight which has gone to a depot because the people aren’t home to receive it.”
Neville Samuels, another local online retailer, also told eBay of this experience with shipping.
He said he’d found with his two businesses, Dungeon Crawl and ToolHQ , that it is difficult to compete with international sellers on shipping costs.
“When eBay sellers move items out of Hong Kong for just $2 each including postage, it’s hard for us to compete.”
For more information go to:
http://www.auspost.com.au/personal/my-deliveries.html
http://lockers.auspost.com.au/register/
