Retailers booed me for saying 'don't blame the delivery company' blog discussion

TanyaG · 18 March 2015 at 7:22PM

Good for you Martin! You're absolutely right. Retailers seem to think that, as they've contracted out the delivery process, they've also contracted out the responsibility. They haven't, they are responsible for the services they use as buyers generally have no say in which delivery company is used.

Burgers · 18 March 2015 at 8:18PM

I have just joined the Forum, today in fact after seeing Martin speak at the Retail Live event.
I very much enjoyed his talk, he gained my admiration for the work that he has done to empower the consumer. I took part in his 'show of hands' and got all of the questions wrong (excellent way to get a point across). I'm not part of the retail industry, I work in food manufacturing and we take the 'last mile', intact every cm very seriously. So maybe my perspective was a little different to the rest of the audience but I am very surprised to read that Martin felt he was Boo'd on stage. From the delegates sitting near me, there were many nodding heads and murmurs of 'he's right'.

If anyone else attended Retail Week, then I am keen to know if you think Martin may have misunderstood the noise from the audience.

esuhl · 18 March 2015 at 8:25PM

canterswest wrote: »

He was booed possibly because he forgot to mention the many MSE deals that fail to arrive and that he has never compensated a customer, he does not actually admit to having customers!

http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2013/9/Moneysavingexpertcom-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_224694.aspx#.VQMLbXwgGSM

But... MSE doesn't sell anything to customers. There are no "MSE deals".

You might as well blame the newspaper boy/girl when a purchase from an newspaper advertisement goes wrong!

Liability has to be based on common-sense!

h15t0r1an · 18 March 2015 at 9:47PM

raldred wrote: »

Sooler i agree in part, delivery drop off services like CollectPlus and Amazon Lockers are excellent and very convenient.
I'm not sure why you mentioned Royal Mail though, they are terrible in my experience, we have nothing but issues with parcel being delivered to the office here by them. Parcels often arrive damaged, wet, open.

The best direct to door delivery service I've experienced is provided by DPD.

Totally with you raldred. DPD are my favourite too.

Let's not mention Yodel.... I feel very sorry for the conditions the people they seem to be subcontracting to must work under. Am absolutely with sorrelradish on the delivery drivers just trying to scratch a living.

Oh, and our own very Royal Mail won't accept me leaving them a signed note accepting delivery if I can't guarantee to be there at whichever time or day they might choose to turn up. Luckily most decent courier firms are more flexible than this.

So now I check postiively every time I buy something that the seller is NOT using Royal Mail if it might need to be signed for. I have mentioned to Royal Mail that I'd rather support their service and help their people keep their jobs, but no change from them yet.

custardy · 19 March 2015 at 6:30AM

h15t0r1an wrote: »

Totally with you raldred. DPD are my favourite too.

Let's not mention Yodel.... I feel very sorry for the conditions the people they seem to be subcontracting to must work under. Am absolutely with sorrelradish on the delivery drivers just trying to scratch a living.

Oh, and our own very Royal Mail won't accept me leaving them a signed note accepting delivery if I can't guarantee to be there at whichever time or day they might choose to turn up. Luckily most decent courier firms are more flexible than this.

So now I check postiively every time I buy something that the seller is NOT using Royal Mail if it might need to be signed for. I have mentioned to Royal Mail that I'd rather support their service and help their people keep their jobs, but no change from them yet.

You mean a note on your door?
So who is signing for the item?

custardy · 19 March 2015 at 6:32AM

esuhl wrote: »

But... MSE doesn't sell anything to customers. There are no "MSE deals".

You might as well blame the newspaper boy/girl when a purchase from an newspaper advertisement goes wrong!

Liability has to be based on common-sense!

Now that's not quite true. Affiliate deals means MSE have a financial interest in many 'deals' they promote

little_monkey · 20 March 2015 at 11:59PM

Q293 Mr Mudie:
I am a great admirer of your
websites and I send my constituents to you when they
raise problems.

But I think today it’s more important
you tell us what you think we should do. The
Chairman started off with the first question, “Should
the regulator be a consumer champion?”

I would
answer in this way, that I have not seen any of the
regulators being consumer champions in the past few
years, not only in finance, but in water, in energy and
air traffic, it has always been on the margin.

Do you
think a regulator can be a consumer champion?

You keep saying, Martin, “I don’t know how to get
things put right” and it comes back to us. You are
representing consumers.

We should be responding to
genuine difficulties that you cannot solve, that they
cannot solve and they’re suffering from.

It comes back
to Government. At the moment, it’s the regulators. We
pass it to the regulators and the regulators, as I say,
have it on the margin. Do you think we can carry on
with regulators being seen as the consumer
champions?

Mr Lewis:
It’s a very interesting point. I’m always
careful to say I don’t represent consumers, because I
haven’t been elected by anybody. I can only talk from my own opinion.

charlieheard · 22 March 2015 at 5:42PM

Someone's obviously got a bee in their bonnet about a something over which MSE have no control. It's like complaining to a listings magazine that a show was cancelled. Martin's response about representing consumers sounds perfectly sensible - just because I read his website doesn't mean he speaks for me!

I had no end of problems with an eBuyer purchase using Yodel recently. Next day delivery was supposed to be Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday. I then gave them a contact number in case they were having difficulty, but they failed again on Thursday and Friday. They "couldn't find the house". Funnily enough, we had deliveries from 6 other firms, all of whom managed to find the house that week. Yodel appear to be fairly useless according to the poll, so I won't be using eBuyer again till they fix it, and I told them so.

custardy · 22 March 2015 at 5:56PM

charlieheard wrote: »

Someone's obviously got a bee in their bonnet about a something over which MSE have no control. It's like complaining to a listings magazine that a show was cancelled. Martin's response about representing consumers sounds perfectly sensible - just because I read his website doesn't mean he speaks for me!

I had no end of problems with an eBuyer purchase using Yodel recently. Next day delivery was supposed to be Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday. I then gave them a contact number in case they were having difficulty, but they failed again on Thursday and Friday. They "couldn't find the house". Funnily enough, we had deliveries from 6 other firms, all of whom managed to find the house that week. Yodel appear to be fairly useless according to the poll, so I won't be using eBuyer again till they fix it, and I told them so.

Well in reality. Ebuyer set themselves up for a fall.
Yodel dont offer next day delivery

cashpointastro · 22 March 2015 at 10:18PM

Can i in the defense of the delivery drivers ( hubby is employed by one company mentioned)explain how difficult it is to provide a service that firstly, is often offered for free by the retailer and so the cheapest option is paid to the delivery company. This will only provide a service that meets the most basic delivery on offer.Secondly due to the delivery companies trying to be the most competitive, they will and are, over loading drivers with impossible targets to meet. With time slots that are unrealistic. For example, a sofa delivery at 10 am which is on a street which has no stopping or is not accessible by lorry and so they have to park 400 yards away and physically lift the sofa from the lorry to the door, only then to be told its two flights of stairs up to the room of choice for the customer. The driver has a run sheet that's allowing 5 minutes for this delivery and it takes 20-30 minutes . This type of scenario occurs many times and so over runs on time happen daily.The drivers want nothing more than to provide a good service and because of situations that are out of their control this is impossible. My husband has many times missed family events as he doesn't want to let down his customers, who are sat waiting for their new bed or sofa. He doesn't want to let anyone down, good job and customer satisfaction is very important, believe me it comes on very few occasions these days as all he finds is an upset customer who have been let down by the system. I don't know what the answer is and can only hope something can be done to help both delivery drivers and customers.

Retailers booed me for saying 'don't blame the delivery company' blog discussion

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