December 2015 Shipping Update

Changes to Shipping Zones and Rates

I have written many articles in the past about the numerous challenges faced in the Australian logistics industry - these affect both customers and merchants around Australia. 

Unfortunately, there is no secret silver bullet or remedy that can be implemented to enable us to reach our desired targets.

Are we unreasonable?.

I don't think so.

We want a service to perform within our customer's expectations.

In the last month, we have implemented revisions to the 2,500+ freight rules that calculate postage charges.

These have been driven by the changes to freight pricing by suppliers and, more specifically, the "controversial" re-zoning for some of our large capital cities like Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane/Gold Coast areas.

In a nutshell, freight companies are now deeming postcodes previously existing within the metro region of the Eastern capital cities as "outside" of the metro and into new outer metro zones - effectively creating two metro zones for many of our capital cities.

Freight charges for outer metro areas may be slightly higher than before. However, to balance the increase, rates have been reduced in some inner metro zones.

Please note that this reduction only applies to Melbourne for now.

I'm not too fond of this action by freight companies because it is not entirely fair to charge up to a $3 difference depending upon how close you live to the CBD.

For example, inner metro Melbourne is now a super-cheap $5.50 whereas outer metro is $8.17.

However, the situation is out of our control.

Express Services

In February 2016, we enabled AusPost Express Parcel. 

For most of our zones, we created a TNT Express option in November 2015 but have since switched off this option after sustaining an incredible number of unreasonable surcharges for residential deliveries by TNT - sometimes above an extra $20 per delivery.

We have been using the TNT service behind the scenes for more than 12 months now for Business to Business, and it's simply superb.

The challenge, though, is that the pricing is geared more towards higher quantity/weight items.

It's expensive for small parcels but cheaper and faster for the larger 12+ kilos to most destinations, etc.

Okay. So it is back to roasting high-quality coffee beans for me then.