| By this time it is old news that Amazon.com yesterday applied a new policy and blacklisted the South African Post Office. According to The Times, world online giant Amazon.com will not be sending parcels to South Africa which are delivered via the South African Post Office due to theft of parcels. This leads to Amazon having to replace the products on their own cost. You are now presented with the option to go via a private courier service resulting in additional charges. According to the article you will pay approx. R 420 extra to get a DVD couriered from the US to your door. This morning myself and Townboy sat down with Justin Drennan who is the Co-Founder of WantitAll.co.za and did a MyDL-TV interview. WantitAll.co.za is an online retailer that supplies the South African market with products that are available on Amazon.com. This strategic partnership provides South Africans with the same product availability. WantitAll.co.za imports the products from Amazon.com via DHL and uses South African Couriers to deliver your goods to your door. Currently it is reported that South Africans can still order products from Amazon UK which Justin reckons will only be a matter of time before that door is also closed. Been a client of Amazon.com they contacted their Account Manager who wasn't aware of the policy and is currently investigating it - interesting. According to Justin they have never used the Post Office as part of their logistical setup due to the market they operate in. As per example he explained that it doesn't help that they do an excellent job importing a R 12 000.00 camera and it gets dropped by the Post Office before it reaches the client. Going the Courier route ensure that they maintain their service level without incidents. He is also of the opinion that "theft" can also refer to scammers who claim to have never received products and then it defaults to be a Post Office problem. Due to this combination online retailers are loosing millions per annum in replacing stolen goods. Yesterday I phoned the guys over at Kalahari.net who have over 1 000 000 products on offer to get their feelings on the matter. They noted that they are aware of the Amazon claim but that they do not experience the same problem with the Post Office. Most of their deliveries are done via Courier Services which is included in the online price and should you wish to have it send via The Post Office the price remains the same. So if the price is the same why not use couriers as a standard rule? Take2.co.za where a bit more honest in their response stating that it does happen from time to time but they do not consider it to be a major issue. Depending on the parcel value and delivery location they make an assessment on the route to follow. Predominantly courier services are being used. If the parcel is over a certain value the do insure the parcel should the need arise to have it replaced. Forgive me but I am not phoning the Post Office to get their take on it, I don't think they have heard the news yet. So if you are using Amazon.com you can simply switch over to WantitAll.co.za and enjoy the same service with local support. Be sure to watch out for the MyDL-TV interview with Justin to get more insight into online shopping. |
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