8mm Forum: Hermes - Fully Tracked?

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Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 29, 2015, 01:23 PM:

Just received some films from an eBay seller in Tiverton (Devon) who used Hermes as a carrier. According to the AA Route Finder the seller is a distance of 69.7 miles from me in Bristol. Here is the parcel's route.

25 August 22.23 Order generated
27 August 10.19 Customer sent via Parcel Shop
27 August 16.34 Arrived at depot
27 August 18.53 Sent to My Hermes central hub
28 August 03.27 Hub sorter receipt scan
29 August 00.43 Receipt at depot
29 August 00.50 Processed at depot
29 August 05.43 Out for delivery to courier
29 August 07.17 Courier received
29 August 07.43 Signature from customer

Hermes advertises "Fully Tracked". But how can all the above make any sense to a recipient? Maybe, yes to Hermes, but not me. Even the Hermes delivery man had no idea of where the various places are. UPS and Parcel Force actually name the towns involved in their routing.

Another thing. Hermes' delivery drivers never ask for a signature despite what the print-out says.

I have no real complaint about the time taken, just the lack of proper information.

I suppose Hermes is used by many sellers as I believe their prices are quite reasonable.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on August 29, 2015, 01:56 PM:

I guess what they are saying is "We know where your package is.", but you don't need to.

If FedEx tells me their package arrived at the sorting facility in Nashville an hour ago it's comforting to me that I can stick a pin in the map and know my package is there, but it's not as if something goes wrong I'm going there to get it back myself.

-then again the fact that I can send a package to an address a hundred miles away and have it do a two thousand mile loop is really baffling to most people (lowest total cost.), but at the end of a day it's somebody else's process and we're stuck to trust it.

Just maybe they have a similar scheme and they don't want people wondering why their parcel looks like it's going hundreds of miles in what looks like he wrong direction when it seems to make more sense to do the shortest distance between the two points.

-If they told you where their central hub is, you might be kind of shocked!

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on August 29, 2015, 02:10 PM:

The advantage of knowing precisely where your parcell is, is the possibility of estimating when it will be delivered. That can be important if you have the flexibility of staying at home the day you believe they will bring you what you're waiting for. If you see a Monday night that it is still far away (maybe not even in your country), you don't have to be at home the Tuesday morning. Of course, if your item is in your town you may expect to receive it the following day and you may want to avoid the trouble of having to pick it up elsewhere or at the post office.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on August 29, 2015, 02:19 PM:

I don't think location (and distance) is actually a big issue: a package spends a great deal of time sitting still, either being processed, sorted or loaded/unloaded onto trucks or planes or even just waiting.

In the small minority of remaining time they move like they are on fire! It's an old joke here: if you are in traffic and you pull up behind a UPS truck or a FedEx, get in the FedEx lane. If it's UPS or USPS, choose UPS.

Just look at Maurice's shipment: 70 miles. If this was a 24 hour shipment the average speed would be a hair under 3 miles an hour: typical walking speed. This means unless the hub is in India it spends a lot of time not traveling.

I find the carriers I use are pretty faithful to their forecasted delivery.

There was that one time when my company was desperately trying to get a power supply to a customer that was in dire need. They took it off final test, while it was still hot they packed it up and the traffic manager personally drove it to FedEx and got it in on time for next day delivery. We called the customer and told them it was on the way.

-A hundred miles towards their hub FedEx's plane developed engine troubles and was forced to land at an air strip out in the middle of nowhere. The plane sat a few days until they could get a crew out there and fix it.

Nobody's perfect!

Posted by David Guest (Member # 2791) on August 29, 2015, 02:51 PM:

I would not send anything with them they employ der ders and they email you that they are picking up today then the next thing another email saying no one in unable to pick up I email them and say why did you not place a card in the letter box guess what no reply

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