Evri is not the courier from hell

Olinda99

Well Evri have the unique distinction of being the subject of a question in Prime Minister's question today i.e. What does the government plan to do about all the complaints about Evri?

p00hsticks

SpillerMRS said:

We all know that Royal Mail strikes piled pressure on other courier companies over Christmas but if the demand was too great, the service shouldn’t be offered! For instance, I would far rather be told by Evri that I couldn’t book a delivery until backlog was cleared… than the personal experience I’ve had where, since October, Evri has “lost” SIX parcels (one that we sent, the other five coming to us from reputable companies).

Don't you think at least some of the responsibility should be borne by those 'reputable companies ' ? They chose, and continue to choose, to use Evri, probably because their customers demand free or very cheap delivery, and it's a race to the bottom. All couriers were warning in December that the the combination of Black Friday, Christmas, Royal Mail postal strikes and a spell of extremely bad weather (at least in the North East, where I am) were creating a backlog of deliveries and that they were struggling to cope.

I'm sure all the different couriers would have communicated these issues directly to the companies that they had contracts with. 

Knowing this, responsible retailers could have managed customer expectations by either restricting the number of orders they were taking (or even stopping taking new orders altogether), extending the expected delivery window or even making arrangements to deliver the goods themselves.

In my view, online customers should be more picky about the delivery options offered by these 'reputable companies'. If they don't offer a choice of couriers at different price points and with different delivery windows, then simply don't buy from them and let them know why not.

Auntycaz

I live rurally and have a lovely evri delivery driver and have had no problem receiving parcels. My only problem with the company is not being able to speak to anyone if you have a query. You get an automated reply that asks you for a parcel number but if your query is about getting someone to collect a return when you give the order number they just say it's been delivered. Which I obviously know as I'm trying to return it and there is no way of speaking to a real person.

sheramber

Evri is not the only courier affected.

My son is still waiting for a parcel from DPD since before Christmas.

kinglewis121

I've been registered here for something like 12 years and in that time i started a business about 5 years ago that retails online and as i use both Royal Mail and Evri/Hermes so i can weigh in a little here.

Realistically i'd love to ditch Evri every week there is issue in some shape or form. But the truth is as someone above said it's the price for a "fully tracked service" i think this month i was paying £2.75 per parcel which is difficult to beat, I do use Royal mail for smaller parcels which cost me £2.85 for a standard untracked second class parcel and these parcels are less than a quarter of the size of the Evri ones i send, the reason for that is sending those via Evri at the size they are they get lost left right and centre. the issue with Royal mail over the years is they've never had any intention of being competitive in that space because i firmly believe they rely on the older generation toddling to the post office on a Monday to ship that box of chocolate to the grandkids down south where they are in no position to be savvy with who they send with for the most part. if i were to send the same parcel with Royal mail as i do with Evri the price is borderline insulting. 

I've used UPS before and they are really really good in my opinion, however at this moment a collected UPS parcel from my unit is around £9. The parcel shop local to me that deals with UPS would have a fit if i walked in with the amount I'd send daily if i switched to UPS.

Selling online at the moment and will only continue i'd say is aggressive VERY aggressive when it comes to pricing, people will actively choose another vendor (even a lower rated one) that are merely pennies cheaper i've kept my prices the same since roughly 2018 even with material prices and what not rising, my products are free postage which means i cover it (or actually base it into the overall price is more accurate) the second i try to introduce an even minute shipping charge to offer a better carrier service my sales will fall off a cliff, because of the likes of amazon (which i've no malice towards by the way and use daily myself) we are conditioned to expect free delivery (well at least within the cost of prime) so anything out of the boundary is alien to a lot of people and seems to instantly get their back up whenever they see it.

I've got a small amount of data to back this up in some form because since the strikes we're announced i had an option on my product lines where you could for a supplementary fee (ie the difference between Evri and UPS) have UPS delivery rather than the free evri service i don't think i even put the correct amount in I'm sure it was only £2 more. So essentially as a customer you could have Evri for free or UPS for £2, not one customer chose UPS not a single one, i also had notices and banners everywhere stating the issues with both Royal mail and Evri yet no one was bothered until it directly affected them.

Over Christmas i closed up from the 10th until new year due to having more problems than i did orders, the remaining orders prior in December i shipped with UPS with the difference from my own pocket as to hopefully have at least those weeks free of complaint if i wasn't earning any money anyway. 

So the overall gist for a smaller business like myself is it's a fine line, i'd have a hell of a lot better life if i had UPS arriving to my shop daily knowing that mostly everything will arrive next day rather than having to cart a car full of parcels to my nearest Happy shopper on the corner (the eagle eyed of you will wonder why they aren't collected from me) .... because they rarely turn up is the answer to that. I just can't fill the gap on the prices unfortunately.

If you've gotten this far in my essay i can offer a slight insight as to why evri works the way it does and how it harbours some of the issues it does.

The simple answer is the people they employ, this is why you get 10 posts saying my Evri courier is amazing then 100 saying theirs's isn't it's a huge variance. Hermes and Evri have always promoted their courier job's as "lifestyle" jobs and reading between the lines what this means is it's a take it or leave it job, it doesn't have the same constraints as a full time job with DPD where you have a contract and can face genuine disciplinary action should you mess up. 

it's been known where i've seen it myself to start delivering with Evri where the depot manager doesn't even know your last name it's a sort of "we'll sort it later" affair, because of usually how many people realise after a few days it's not for them and leave without notice it's an always "on the back foot" sort of thing. With these do and ditch after a few days sort of job you'll get that sort of thing happening, this is why a lot of your complaints centre around "it say's out for delivery between 12:00 and 14:00" only to then say "we can't deliver today" it's because i've seen it first hand where someone has taken out a round and then decided they have something to do later that day and return to the depot and ditch it without finishing. As well as these thing's again couriers use their own vehicles mostly and as much as this isn't any judgement or stereotyping it isn't often you see an Evri courier delivering in a brand new Tesla or Mercedes, they are usually old beater from A to B car's which as we can all understand aren't exactly reliable, certainly not as reliable as fleet's of van's the likes of DPD and DHL have that have their own maintenance personnel and service centres. it's very common for a couriers vehicle to break down mid route or something similar, it's these things that overall make Evri and what allows their prices to be so low. 

I will continue to use Evri for the moment until something changes regarding prices and what not, Evri will continue to operate unless something is done via either something so catastrophic that they won't recover or that of the government stepping in.

As a final comment large companies such as clothing retailers, if this isn't already obvious get a significantly lower price on parcels due to contracts with Evri and when i say significant we're possibly talking as low as £1 for a shipment, when you have the volume you have with companies like Boohoo and Asos, delivery companies will almost go negative in order to have their contract on their balance sheet, deals with these companies are worked a lot more thoroughly than if the likes of me and you we're to send through them, they'll have insurance agreements and assorts and even with no compensation the price they pay for shipping with them rather than the next is so different they can afford to lose a good amount of parcels and still be overall in profit.  And finally clothes can't be smashed or damaged  

username

A very honest if lengthy post, so thanks for writing it.

I think the commitment aspect is probably quite true for Evri, I suspect the more dedicated ones that know all of the locality deliver the better service, whereas the casual types in the back of a Zafira will do it for the money but lack the commitment and are likely to do a knock-down ginger with the parcel.

I'm not sure what the value of the items is you sell, but if it was expensive or if I needed it quickly I would have swallowed the £2 cost and paid for UPS.

Evri in my area are appalling - although luckily most of the shipments can be picked up at a collection shop so at least you don't have to wait in for a failed delivery.

kinglewis121

I’m not one for writing essays, it’s just years of experience so I thought for once I’ll share it.

you’re bang on the money in what you say, I’ve done my fair share of do it to get by jobs in the past and I’ll never put myself on a pedestal if I was doing that job from what I understand already I’d likely knock down ginger a few deliveries too, from what I’ve been told by couriers and I can imagine it’s true is payment per delivered parcel …. Not payment per attempt meaning if I had to return three times in order to earn my per drop fee I’d be a lot more motivated to leave it there. 

Funnily enough when I mentioned the hiring policies scrolling through Facebook earlier a post on marketplace actually advertising a job for evri and I quote “car and smartphone needed start tommorow” which reading between the lines says all you need to know I guess.

As for about what I sell it varies my highest is a £90 product, normally on those if evri is used it’ll be an extra fee for POD (proof of delivery) and I’ll use their “next day” upgrade too which I think at the moment comes out to around 4 pounds something. Again I’m fairly sure UPS on my shipping integration platform is asking £9 people are quick to say it isn’t a lot of difference which I agree for the most part. However my own web store only accounts to 10 percent of our sales, the rest come through the likes of eBay which as I’m sure many know fees upon fee’s drive the margins down, plus on these market places we all know it’s a race to the bottom. Someone is always willing to take a chance by lowering prices. 

Anyway just have to like it or lump it until something changes 

spinynorman

Sorry if this is the wrong place or been suggested before but I just read a post on a local forum about dodgy deliveries and a person suggested that delivery people be given body-worn cameras.
it seemed such I good idea that I thought I’d spread the word…
My only complaints about deliveries is that they never give you enough time to get to the door - it’s like ”knock-down ginger” where I live in East London.  My only other gripe is with Royal Mail signed-for deliveries - my last two were forged by the delivery driver.  OK I was in - I’m always in, so got my delivery shortly after they knocked on the door but come on - it only takes me another 30 seconds to get to the door - they could have waited.  I mean the forged signature didn’t even resemble some initials let alone a handwritten signature/initialling on a pad…

mjm3346

spinynorman said:

Sorry if this is the wrong place or been suggested before but I just read a post on a local forum about dodgy deliveries and a person suggested that delivery people be given body-worn cameras.
it seemed such I good idea that I thought I’d spread the word…
My only complaints about deliveries is that they never give you enough time to get to the door - it’s like ”knock-down ginger” where I live in East London.  My only other gripe is with Royal Mail signed-for deliveries - my last two were forged by the delivery driver.  OK I was in - I’m always in, so got my delivery shortly after they knocked on the door but come on - it only takes me another 30 seconds to get to the door - they could have waited.  I mean the forged signature didn’t even resemble some initials let alone a handwritten signature/initialling on a pad…

Funnily enough the One Show this week featured some Evri deliveries where the packages had been photographed on  doorsteps etc for proof of delivery then the couriers had been caught on cctv walking off with the packages!

sheramber

spinynorman said:

Sorry if this is the wrong place or been suggested before but I just read a post on a local forum about dodgy deliveries and a person suggested that delivery people be given body-worn cameras.
it seemed such I good idea that I thought I’d spread the word…
My only complaints about deliveries is that they never give you enough time to get to the door - it’s like ”knock-down ginger” where I live in East London.  My only other gripe is with Royal Mail signed-for deliveries - my last two were forged by the delivery driver.  OK I was in - I’m always in, so got my delivery shortly after they knocked on the door but come on - it only takes me another 30 seconds to get to the door - they could have waited.  I mean the forged signature didn’t even resemble some initials let alone a handwritten signature/initialling on a pad…

getting signatures was reinstated May 22  so the sender can claim a refund.

https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19910/~/my-royal-mail-signed-for®-item-arrived-without-a-signature-being-taken#:~:text=Signature on delivery was reinstated,items delivered from this date.