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Fedex (not sure if CS use them) are now doing a 24hour stop work. It seems, to cater for the increase in parcels, they have all been hiring casual/temp staff to help out and been paying them 25% less. The Full Time workers are worried that they will be tossed out once it dies down.
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FedEx has nothing to do with us.
...but the strike is the same reason that Star Track had a 24 hour strike last week. TNT was bought by FedEx and they are changing their delivery model to fit "Amazon Flex" which is basically people doing local deliveries in their own cars. None of the freight companies can keep up with the volume of "last mile" freight into lockdown areas and no one can employ enough drivers to cover it unless they go to a casual, at call model of sub-contractors to deliver 100's of items per square kilometre.
Post and others have pushed "parcel lockers" and "parcel collection points" for a long time to try and avoid door-to-door deliveries and Fastway have had "Blu Couriers" who are typically uni students delivering a car load of small items when needed (same model as Amazon Flex). -
Yep, been getting those Amazon Flex ads in my FB feeds all the time now. Interesting concept, Every Amazon delivery I've had lately is just some dude in his Camry so it seems to be a good option for a few extra dollars for people. Although once you factor in car costs, fuel, taxes etc I wonder what the take home is for a 4 hour weekend stint. -
Mentioned a story about delivery drivers under pressure in South Korea in another thread. I think someone else might have posted this link before, but it is worth a read if considering Amazon Flex as a work option: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-...erns/100404498
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The backlog might be clearing up. Ordered a grinder midday from Alternative Brewing Tuesday afternoon, got it Wednesday (next day) via Auspost Express. Should mention I m in Vic, so interstate service.Comment
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They (AB) are posting from Brisbane, right? That should be fine. AFAIK the problem is more with goods picked up in Melbourne (and to a lesser degree Sydney) for distribution elsewhere.
I ordered some Gin and Vermouth (I bet you can't guess what I'm making) from Nicks Wines in Melbourne Wednesday. They sent via Aramex, arrived on my doorstep in Canberra 26 hours later.
Auspost are just overwhelmed and have lots of staff in iso. I normally use AusPost for everything. But for stuff trying to leave Melbourne now.....I'll give that a wide berth. -
Nah, A Negroni uses sweet (red) vermouth. I have some cheap stuff (Cinzano) and some nicer stuff (Dolin Rouge). But I do have some Noilly Prat in the cupboard (good in a risotto base).
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Another frustrated person here about my bean postage delay!! Sorry just needed to vent.
Ordered the good stuff, Yemen Hamasil Village, from beanbay and was sent as usual on the Monday after Sunday 20th Sept roast, so all good on coffeesnobs side. Usually takes 2-3 days from Geelong to Melb and I figured maybe with delays it'd take up to 5 days and worst case 1 week postage. However, still no indication it has moved form Melbourne processing facility since the 23/9....
I resorted last weekend to supermarket beans, as with Melb lockdown I don't have a close by coffee roaster or decent cafe. I found 200g of just over 4 weeks since roast specialty beans at coles and sounded decent (for supermarket). It was labelled medium/dark roast but opened it up and looked fairly dark and dosing used definitely more beans to get the weight. So densitiy and dryness I think from over roasting and definitely tasted over roasted on the burnt side.
So I'm guessing even these specialty coffee roasters supplying chain supermarkets probably are roasting hard and fast to keep up with high supply and put in less care. Had same experience in NZ recently too.
End point and moral is keep in mind to order an earlier roast date and not aim for really fresh beans if you might run out with delivery delays. Or don't buy the more expensive option if you think you'll lose heaps of the beans freshness sitting in the post.Comment
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9 business days (there was a public holiday in there) is REALLY slow for Post to travel 115km.
The upside (if there is an upside) is that the Yemen really peaks after a long rest but most of us can't wait a couple of weeks to drink it.
Hopefully it appears out of the black-hole soon. -
Thanks Andy, it does ease my mind a bit to know that when I get to the back end of my 1kg of beans they should hold up ok. Plus I'm sure it'll still seem great compared to the emergency beans at the moment.
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Still no joy for my parcel from 13/09.
To be clear to all, I am not complaining, I am just advising.
This is totally out of Andy's control.
Mine is with Aramex and the tracking updates are all over the place really.
Last few days, they had an expected delivery date range on the banner. On Monday it said 04/10-08/10. Then on Tuesday it changed to 05/10-09/10 and moved again on Wednesday.
As of yesterday, it has reverted to 'Sorry we're running late. Parcel delayed'.
I am fortunate that there is no roasted stuff in mine, so as long as it arrives intact at some point soon, all is good.
Oh, and the last actual tracking update still says this:
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Thankfully near nothing is getting lost/stolen but yes, your parcel is taking a crazy long time to move again.
Maybe the Dandenong depot was an exposure site? Wild guess, not based on fact but would fit with the extra long lag if the sorting staff had to isolate and leave the pile of deliveries sitting idle. -
Hopefully your delivery shows some progress soon. I'm not at your level of delayed or increasing delayed forecast delivery yet for my parcel.
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Probably relevant to post this article. We all know Andy gets our parcels out quickly, usually within a couple of hours, after that it is really out of his hands and in the hands of the carrier we choose. The Chief Executive of Shippit who monitors and delivers through a number of carriers believes we will have delays till Christmas
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-...tmas/100504602Comment
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Green beans ordered Wednesday evening, shipped Thursday delivered Monday from one locked down LGA to another.
Love your work!
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I'm tempted to place another order now and see how they race each other
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Did that experiment with AustPost earlier in the thread:
https://coffeesnobs.com.au/forum/new...928#post882928
...and yes, the second one was way faster than the first which makes me think the backlog is so tall/high/big in the depots that they cannot get to the first ones in the pile and are delivering from the latest ones on the pile.
It's nuts for some orders (like yours) others seem to be getting through okay.
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A picture of the Australia Post Melbourne Parcel Facility (in Sunshine West) has been doing the news rounds the last few days...
To make matters worse, That is just a corner of a VERY large building.
I had a tour of the place years ago and it took a long time to walk around the different areas. It's an impressive building and was flowing well when we were there but if you start to pile like the above picture, you can see how stuff can get buried for a long time.
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Mine has arrived!Comment
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Good news story: I pre-ordered a machine which arrived from Italy and was delivered to the premises of site sponsor Antony Casa Espresso in Melbourne on Friday just gone.
After testing, Antony booked the courier and it was uplifted by Allied Express that same day.
The machine arrived on my doorstep today being Wednesday (I'm two hours north of Brisbane).
That is quite impressive. Kudos to Antony and Allied Express.Comment
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Not sure perhaps Antony will tell you but as much as anything else my guess (operative word) is at least to confirm that the machine on the inside of the box is the same as what it says on the outside. Stranger things have happened. It's a long way back to Melbourne from Noosa. -
Hi Bosco,
All the machines are tested at the factory before shipping.
After that, between Naples and Melbourne the machine is loaded and unloaded on to half a dozen different trucks as well as a 6 to 7 week journey inside a container at sea.
We test to make sure that nothing small has been damaged or come loose in its journey.
A basic bench test after a journey like that is a given in our books
Antony
www.casaespresso.com.au -
Thanks. makes sense if it is LCL freight. Would not think the machine would need any adjustment, those lever manufacturers are pretty pedantic.
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Well, this thread is still up and this was technically shipped in September, so...
Someone upthread asked about Aramex, here's my +1 data point. I ordered a fairly large (10kg?) box on 26th September which as usual was immediately shipped by Andy (27th) and landed in Minto NSW on 15th October, 18 days later.
I'm not complaining, this was a major (personal) restock and I had planned for it to take a while. Aramex/Fastway has always been very fast for me when shipping to Sydney proper up to early 2021. I don't really understand their 1/5 rating on Google.Comment
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The main reason for the varying reviews on Aramex/Fastway is the quality and integrity of the local franchisee. If you haven't had a crap one, then you won't have received the 'service' that has attracted the 1/5 ratings. In my case the level of poor service went a lot further than goods rocking up late....they magically 'disappeared' (twice....same order and re-order of electronic equiplent) after being loaded onto the delivery van at the CBR depot. That franchise has since changed hands and I've had no subsquent problem with their service at all. -
At that point Aramex, whose logo is on the franchisee's trucks, should have made you good (refund, investigation, etc.) - if they didn't, then a bad review is justified. But would it average to 1/5? I don't think they'd be the only ones to "swallow" a few bad apples in a sea of no problem deliveries, and cut (expensive) customer service in a world where the customer usually picks the cheapest option on sight. -
My coffee arrived about 6 weeks after ordering, via Aramex. I now have a wine order sitting on 2 weeks and counting at the moment from Melbourne to Sydney. They all arrive fairly quickly to the final depot and then stay there for the remainder. Even Australia Post is now delivering within 3-4 days, DHL and Couriers Please are 1-2 days now for me.
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I probably should have read this thread before I ticked the appropriate box. Having an aramex parcel depart the same day from Geelong to Melbourne and then fall into a black hole. It has been a week of no update for my parcel now.
Unfortunately it does have freshly roasted beans in it, will just wait it outComment
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I have a package (NOT coffee related) whose delivery was interrupted by the strikes a couple of weeks ago. It seems to be a first-in, last-out type situation, 3 day lead time now stretched to 3 weeks, with no time frame given for expected delivery. I understand and don't really mind the delay, it is the lack of communication from Australia Post (in this instance), that I find unsatisfactory. I don't know why we can't be given progress reports on the backlog every few days with actual reasons for the delay, rather then a link to a webpage with pretty generic "Current COVID-19 impacts" listed. Frustrating.
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