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Rip-off postal charges to Northern Ireland
As a resident of Northern Ireland I feel there are a few injustices in the area of IT product delivery that need to be voiced. A few years ago, one was able to order from a variety of online retailers, mostly based in England, without incurring substantial surcharges. Sadly, those days have mostly gone. It seems that it is now fair game to add on up to £15 extra for a delivery to the Province. A quick survey of the major online retailers makes this abundantly clear – for example, Dabs charges £11.75 extra for NI delivery; Ebuyer £15; Savastore £14.95; Novatech £14.10 and Microdirect £15.
This issue was first brought to my attention when I tried to buy a game for the Xbox from Ebuyer, which had been competitively priced at around £20. However, when I proceeded through to the checkout, this almost doubled, given the £15 surcharge to Northern Ireland. Such companies must ask themselves if it is justifiable to charge £15 extra for the postage of a small light item to another part of the UK.
When you look at Royal Mail’s rates, you will find that using Special (next day) Delivery, a parcel of 2kg weight sent from London to Belfast with £500 compensation insurance, costs £6.95 in total – never mind the extra £10-15 pounds customer are asked to pay. As the majority of IT components will weigh less than 2kg, I feel that it surely is profiteering on the part of such companies to charge such exorbitant surcharges. Thankfully, there are still a few places, such as Overclockers.co.uk, which maintain one charge for the whole of the UK.
The companies may argue that their delivery agents charge them more for “overseas delivery”; I too can see the need to pay more for larger and bulkier items. However, I hardly think a PCI card or new processor would fit into such categories and hence would urge such retailers to reconsider their policy on behalf of all who live in “outlying areas”.
Maurice Hall
November 7, 2005 in Vent your spleen! | Permalink
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Comments
I agree too many Companies rip you off with postal charges. I ordered 4MB of printer memory from Offtek and was charged £5 for carriage. This arrived by Royal Mail Recorded Delivery the postage shown on the package was £1.20. And don't forget that VAT is payable on the carriage charge as well which really bumps the cost up.
Posted by: Sylvia | 11 Nov 2005 18:11:45
Let's hope the mainland suppliers waken up to the fact that there are many potential customers here in Northern Ireland IF ONLY these huge surcharges for delivery were not applied. I don't even bother reading the adverts of the firms you mention, because I am only too well aware that a disproportionate sum will be added for delivery across those few miles of sea to a different part of the United Kingdom.
Posted by: Grace | 11 Nov 2005 18:48:18
Perhaps this is something which should be referred to the Office of Fair Trading. Since the Post Office don't charge any extra for delivery to Northern Ireland, how can these companies possibly justify charging more? Is that they are making so much money that they don't want or need business from Northern Ireland Customers?
Posted by: Bill Lloyd | 11 Nov 2005 22:03:27
Or maybe it's a price-fixing chance to profit from these special cases. In any case, trading standards and the office of fair trading are online these days - see if you can make an online complaint...
Posted by: Paul | 7 Dec 2005 01:09:43
Have a look on Parcelforce's website and use their calculator. I used the example of a 2kg parcel being sent from Belfast to Bedfordshire. Cost was £13.85. But now do it the other way round and the cost rises to over £21. How do they work that out?
Posted by: Steve | 9 Feb 2006 19:37:12
Companies being companies.They are there to make a profit.But I must agree with the rip off brigade.Is the UK now a two tier postal system.One for us and one for them.Come on Mr top postman give us a clue
Posted by: Raymond Hughes | 27 Feb 2006 20:08:10
Agree ...agree sold an item on ebay subject to agreed postal charges not exceeding £25 bringing total to pay to fair deal £100.
Have tried 17 differant collect and deliver companies to find average quote is £28 PLUS vat for 3 or more day delivary!!!!
No suprise, order cancelled
TIME WE ALL STOOD UP AND GOT LISTENED
TO
Posted by: Toni | 13 Apr 2006 16:23:32
Scan & Aria are good for NI, they use City-link which for some reason is crap in England but is always next day for me in Belfast with no surcharge at £11.00, Overclockers is a bit more expensive at £16.00 and they also add charges to different weights - they now use City-link for NI as well though as Parcelforce was awful - expensive and slow. Another thing to note is that the post from England to here is a different price - price fixing basically as highlighted by TV show Watchdog.
Posted by: Dis | 29 Jul 2006 16:58:25
Scan are no good anymore. They used to be brilliant but recently they tried to charge me somewhere in the region of £20 delivery for a £25 PCI card.
Dabs are much better than they used to be and have reduced their surcharge from £12 to £4 or £5. The problem is I keep forgetting to check them because I've become so used to skipping over them.
Komplett are also quite good, and Amazon, if you can find what you're looking for at a decent price obviously.
Posted by: beano | 15 Nov 2007 10:46:00
I am regularly checking IT websites. I always go to the delivery page first. From what I find the best places for postage to Northern Ireland at the moment are:
mplex.com - Next day £5 (Northern Ireland computer chain, quite a few branches in N.I)
Play.com - Free delivery
Amazon.co.uk - Free delivery when using super saver (Doesn't include the auction type amazon sellers)
Microdirect.co.uk - £2.99 (No surcharge) up to 5Kg
Dabs - Postage same as UK & only £4.00 surcharge
When and ONLY WHEN other etailers remove these stupid surcharges will I buy from them.
Posted by: Trevor | 22 Jan 2008 16:43:24
