Carrier choice is now a thing!

Custom charges blog
Justin
Justin
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We’ve been getting a lot of calls recently from people who would like to be able to choose which carrier we use to send their order with. Often there’s a particular carrier who does a good job in their neighbourhood (or more often one they want to avoid!)

Well, good news – you can now let us know which carrier you’d like us to use in the checkout!

Now, there’s a reason it says “Carrier preference” rather than “Carrier we’ll definitely for sure use, and you can take that to the bank 100% guaranteed”, and that’s because (very occasionally) we’ll actually need to send your order with a different carrier than the one you asked for due to operational constraints, however we’ll always do our absolute best to accommodate your preference if we possibly can.

What are these “operational constraints” I hear you ask? Well, there are quite a few, but here are the most common reasons:

  • Carriers have different collection times, so it might be that there isn’t enough time to pick and pack your order before that carrier leaves.
  • Sometimes a particular carrier doesn’t have any more space on their vehicle or capacity in their network.
  • Sometimes a particular carrier can’t deliver next day to specific post codes

In general, we assume that you’d rather have your order delivered on time by a non-preferred carrier than late with a preferred carrier, so we’ll always prioritise that.

Thoughts / ideas / suggestions? Let us know what you think!

Cheers,

Justin

Founder, CEO, sweeper-upper

6 Comments

Michael Bordoli
Michael BordoliJanuary 14, 2024
PLEASE NEVER use Evri !!!
John
JohnAugust 5, 2023
Never by Hermes/Evri, what’s in a name? Zilch exactly the same abysmal service and lies.
Gary
GaryApril 5, 2022
This is excellent, but *never ever* use Hermes. They consistently lie about packages that they say have been delivered. but haven’t. If they do actually turn up, then the packages are almost nearly destroyed. Please DO NOT use them for me, ever.
Paul
PaulFebruary 11, 2022
Carrier choice is a great idea, but I agree with previous commenters that your assumption is wrong: if I’ve chosen a particular carrier then that’s the one I really want you to use even if it causes a delay. In my case, I’ve been adding a delivery notes entry saying PLEASE DELIVER ONLY USING DPD for ages, after a very expensive bottle of scotch which was supposed to be being delivered by Fedex basically disappeared off the face of the planet – they couldn’t tell me where it was, they have closed their local office near me, and they couldn’t even give me any indication of when it might reappear. In that case MoM customer service very kindly arranged to recall the parcel and despatch a completely new one by next day delivery using DPD – who, for some reason, seem to be the only carrier who can reliably deliver to us like they’re supposed to. Fedex – forget it, they only deliver “you were out” cards (spoiler: we are always in!); Yodel – sometimes. Royal Mail? Usually, but not always. UPS – if they feel like it. Hermes… pot luck. Etc. So when I say “please use this carrier”, I really, really mean it. As in, I cannot guarantee that the package will actually arrive with other carriers, so please don’t use them. Maybe you should extend the carrier choice dialog to add a “guarantee to use” tick box? Or maybe just guarantee to use the selected carrier but drop the customer an email if it will cause a delay? Otherwise I’m still going to have to put PLEASE DELIVERY *ONLY* USING DPD in the delivery notes because I really do mean ONLY.
Rick Garner
Rick GarnerDecember 15, 2021
This is brilliant and I wish more companies would give a choice. There’s one courier around here so poor I will not purchase from a retailer that uses it, if I have to pay a tad more I will just to avoid the 50% probability of a problem. Which brings me to “we assume that you’d rather have your order delivered on time by a non-preferred carrier”, I think this is a wrong assumption. personally I’d rather wait a day more than risk you using a company that is rubbish. Why don’t you add that (expedite/prepared to wait) as an option too?
Monika Davey
Monika DaveyJanuary 26, 2022
All I can say is, that I completely agree with you. We should have an option to choose to wait in case of a delay too. I choose a specific courier for a reason, and would never purchase anything from anyone if they wouldn’t give me an option to choose a courier at checkout.

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