It’s that time of year again: Christmas cards and presents need to be posted. And the annual reminder of how expensive it is to post stuff. Cards arent so bad, 88c to most of the world, but packages are a different story. I had a large parcel of presents to send to my sister in Singapore, so I snuck out of work to try and get it in the post before the posting deadline on Friday. It cost a wopping €34 to post a package the size of a shoe box, weighing just over 2kg. About 30g over. And it was only standard post! That added a good 30% to the cost of the presents. Recession my ass….
And to make matters works, the very helpful lady behind the counter told me that if I split it into two packages of less than 2kg each, then it would cost me much less. Well, thats great to let me know that for future reference, but I wasnt about to take home a package I had stuffed with foam and wrapped up with duct tape so that it was more imprenetrable than Fort Knox, and risk missing the posting deadline and my sister having no presents for Christmas.
Now I see why Santa delivers himself rather than using An Post.
2 Comments for Going Postal
Tim | December 7, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Author comment by therub | December 11, 2009 at 1:38 pm
While it may have cost a small fortune, I did get feedback today that the package was delivered. Delivery time, 7 days. Not too bad.
Had problems with An Post before on delivering to France- cost a bomb then the package was returned to me the next week! Eventually did get my money back but in the mean time I used GLS and it was half the cost. I used their drop point at Reads- I was a bit apprehensive leaving it with a student behind the counter but you get your track and trace and insurance & it got there quick enough!
http://www.gls-group.eu/276-I-PORTAL-WEB/content/GLS/IE01/EN/1_gls-ireland_home.htm