Really cheap food...however

matt286bay

ordered on friday lunchtime and delivered today at 10am (tuesday), now thats what i call service, everything present and correct and superbly packed.
glad really as when i come on here on saturday got the shock of my life, with threads saying company gone under and that the goods wouldnt turn up, this was my 3rd order and will be back for me.
thanks dan

wookie_2

more goodies arrived from my 5th order today, all as expected, tip top and bristol fashion. Ordered on sun night, arrived this morning, excellent service. Dan i need some more of that polish beans and bacon in the jars please, my bro loves it. Another order going in very soon. X

Greatgimp

piefacerecords wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Point taken.

matt286bay

Mistymaid wrote: »

Hopefully I'm not the only person on here that actually thinks the delivery price is very reasonable?

I'm one of the customers that comes under the £10.50 delivery charge and that is still damn good compared to what I normally have to pay to have items delivered by courier, so whatever deal Dan has negotiated at the minute isn't bad at all.

I think you have to take the whole thing into perspective. Accepting payments by Google means he can keep prices down, Paypal effectively means they would have to go up (just to give paypal their dosh)
Couriers set their own rates and nothing goes into the pocket of the wholesaler, so he's not done a bad job getting the prices that he has - proven by the increase in sales. If GB gets his way and privatises Royal Mail and more of us have to use courier firms for lots of things then maybe folk will have a lot more to complain about ...

And like I said, even with a £10.50 delivery charge, my order worked out at a right bargain. I sat down and tried to figure how much the stuff would have cost me in the shops (although admittedly I actually don't have access to a lot of the things so it was guesswork) and my bill (even with delivery) was half what I would normally pay.

It's up to you, but I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, if the gov start printing money and inflation takes off (place your bets here please!) then you will be awfully glad of places and services like Dans.

i agree the delivery charge is good per box£5-25, i live fairl local but would use that visiting its only a gallon or so of petrol, i use dhl myself through a very large broker who send thousands of parcels aweek and still paying £6-85 & vat for the same service so i would think dan has a good price already.

blueberrypie

matt1987 wrote: »

With regards to Northern Ireland. Its the same with any carrier. Northern Ireland costs more whether it being UK or not!!!

Its classed as offshore UK, just like the Scottish Isles are. A lot of companies do free delivery to MAINLAND UK. Unfortunatly, Northern Ireland isnt mainland!

It's hardly an offshore island...

Actually there are quite a lot of companies who deliver to NI for the same price as the rest of the UK, or who have the same delivery offers (for example, free delivery or free over a certain order cost) for Northern Ireland. And it's not always big companies like Amazon or Lakeland - I've recently ordered a quantity of dinnerware - large order and big, heavy box - and paid exactly the same flat rate shipping as anyone else in the UK would - from a small, brand-new company. I'll buy from them again.

But there are also times when the NI delivery is clearly a rip-off - for example, I've experienced companies wanting to charge more for NI delivery even when they use Royal Mail. There are other times when the company just can't be bothered - there's no reason why a 1kg parcel should cost £40 to send to NI - there are plenty of carriers who would do that for less. If a company chooses to use a courier that charges a lot for delivering to NI, that company has just made a decision about how important NI customers are to it. There are even companies who have *stores* in NI but still won't *deliver* to NI - not even to their stores for customer collection - this used to be the case for Co-op appliances (I don't know if it still is - I no longer bother looking there because of it).

Then there are companies like the Book People, who, despite having warehouses and vans in NI, actually charge more to deliver to NI addresses than they do to deliver to those in the Republic of Ireland. I used to place six or seven orders a year with them - now I order less than once a year. Even with small profit margins, they'd have made more money from me if I'd been ordering regularly.

So it's not as simple as "NI just costs more" - it has a lot to do with whether the company is willing to make an effort for its customers. There are options - use a different courier, make a different offer (a higher minimum order, for example). Companies who don't bother will have to accept that it likely means reduced sales.

In the case of Approved Foods, I probably will order again - but I will order less often because of the delivery cost. That might not be Dan's fault, but it's something that he and any business owner should be taking into account.

matt1987

blueberrypie wrote: »

It's hardly an offshore island...

Actually there are quite a lot of companies who deliver to NI for the same price as the rest of the UK, or who have the same delivery offers (for example, free delivery or free over a certain order cost) for Northern Ireland. And it's not always big companies like Amazon or Lakeland - I've recently ordered a quantity of dinnerware - large order and big, heavy box - and paid exactly the same flat rate shipping as anyone else in the UK would - from a small, brand-new company. I'll buy from them again.

But there are also times when the NI delivery is clearly a rip-off - for example, I've experienced companies wanting to charge more for NI delivery even when they use Royal Mail. There are other times when the company just can't be bothered - there's no reason why a 1kg parcel should cost £40 to send to NI - there are plenty of carriers who would do that for less. If a company chooses to use a courier that charges a lot for delivering to NI, that company has just made a decision about how important NI customers are to it. There are even companies who have *stores* in NI but still won't *deliver* to NI - not even to their stores for customer collection - this used to be the case for Co-op appliances (I don't know if it still is - I no longer bother looking there because of it).

Then there are companies like the Book People, who, despite having warehouses and vans in NI, actually charge more to deliver to NI addresses than they do to deliver to those in the Republic of Ireland. I used to place six or seven orders a year with them - now I order less than once a year. Even with small profit margins, they'd have made more money from me if I'd been ordering regularly.

So it's not as simple as "NI just costs more" - it has a lot to do with whether the company is willing to make an effort for its customers. There are options - use a different courier, make a different offer (a higher minimum order, for example). Companies who don't bother will have to accept that it likely means reduced sales.

In the case of Approved Foods, I probably will order again - but I will order less often because of the delivery cost. That might not be Dan's fault, but it's something that he and any business owner should be taking into account.

Lol, but in this case it is just as simple as Northern Ireland costs more, otherwise you would be paying £5.50 like most mainland UK are!

In DHL's case, Northern Ireland is classed as UK Offshore, same with City Link.

blueberrypie

matt1987 wrote: »

Lol, but in this case it is just as simple as Northern Ireland costs more, otherwise you would be paying £5.50 like most mainland UK are!

If you look at the bit of your previous post that I quoted, you'll see that I was replying to your very general statement:

"With regards to Northern Ireland. Its the same with any carrier. Northern Ireland costs more whether it being UK or not!!!"

And my point was that it is *not* "the same with any carrier". NI does *not* always cost more.

In DHL's case, Northern Ireland is classed as UK Offshore, same with City Link.

And yet I regularly have items delivered by DHL without any extra charge.

As I said, it's up to the company to decide who they'll use for deliveries and what the structure of their delivery charges will be. If they choose to charge more to NI and other parts of the UK, the consequence will be less business from those areas.

Mistymaid

Thing is, Matt - and I appreciate the topic has drifted away from Approved Foods; to remain economically viable, then all areas of the UK must/should/have to, be more or less equal in postage/delivery costs.
I firmly believe, more so now than ever, that unless a nationwide attitude to pricing is adopted then our business are going to suffer more than ever.

Yes, NI costs more to deliver to than ... suffolk ... but some companies charge outrageous fees to transport items, way and above what could possibly be deemed reasonable.
And Blueberry is quite right when he/she says some companies are simply too lazy to give alternative options, as I pointed out in my candle buying example.
And the thing is, this isn't, no way, limited to Northern Ireland, in fact anywhere that isn't served by a motorway network seems to suffer the same fate. This I know, because I've lived in most of them!

Say for instance the whole system worked on a mile by mile basis - that would mean anybody in Devon buying anything transported from Aberdeen, would have to pay more than me (who is closer to Aberdeen) according to you this is fair?
Or, what I should do is charge my eBay customers a minimum fee of £12 (which is what it costs to transport something as a minimum charge to mainland UK from here) plus the 'actual' cost instead of charging £1.50 via Royal Mail? Because that is what we are expected to pay if the situation is reversed and companies insist on using a courier service.

I'm not arguing here for the sake of arguing, it just seems to be a standard concept that people in mainland UK go with the, 'Ha, well you don't live 'here' therefore of course you should pay more than the rest of us.' Yet a huge proportion of the UK lives in outlying regions - and, funnily enough, on islands - as is the UK mainland if you think about it.

My argument here is purely an economic one and at the moment (as a nation) we need all the help we can get - a general acceptance of such a huge fluctuation in transportation costs is very damaging to business - fine when people were lobbing credit cards about like they were confetti and companies didn't really have to care where their next customer was coming from, but now seriously, seriously, relevant to business growth, development and employment.

As a nation I really think we should start sticking together and supporting one another - because if GB does privatise the postal system, it won't take long at all before you realise exactly where I'm coming from ...

Greatgimp

I'm just glad I don't live in some far flung part of Great Britain... like the Falklands.

Mistymaid

Yes, but we did put up a fight to keep them ...:rolleyes: