When free delivery isn't free!

[daggerfan]

Hello All.

I realise this isn't something that affects some members of the FC community, but it bugs me when I order something from a retailer claiming to offer free delivery, only to discover in the small print that my postcode isn't covered by that!

A few weeks ago I was looking to buy a new Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary lens. Camera shops in my neck of the woods are almost non-existent, so my first port of call online was Wex Photo Video, a retailer I have used before and from whom I have received excellent service. Unfortunately the lens was out of stock, so I tried another couple of retailers. Park Cameras and Cameraworld, on their home pages, both claimed free delivery over a certain spend, £50 and £150 respectively. But when I got down to the nitty-gritty I discovered my postcode put me in the Scottish Highlands as far as these retailers (or rather, the couriers they use) were concerned (even though geographically speaking I reckon I am in Grampian), and that meant I was subject to a £15 delivery charge. Cameraworld even list the Scottish Highlands as a "UK Offshore" delivery destination!

OK, £15 isn't much in the scheme of things on a £750 purchase, but it's £15 that doesn't have to be paid by some members of the UK population, and it's the price of a couple of middle-of-the-road 16GB SD cards.

So I waited a couple of weeks until Wex had the lens in stock again, and three cheers to them, they offered genuine free delivery even to me! Which begs the question: if Wex can do that, why can't others?

Rant over!

[Nighthawke]

Wex use Royal Mail, or they have for my orders. Other retailers use courier companies and i guess those contracts will not include certain areas for included delivery charges. Not good I know but probably the reason.

[daggerfan]

Yes, I guess you are right. But the thing that gets me is it's retailers, on their own websites, that are offering free delivery, then when they have to charge for certain areas they blame the couriers. And when Cameraworld, for example, can send a package to Luxembourg for the same cost as delivery to the Scottish Highlands, there is something wrong somewhere.

[roger4]

Surely there is no such thing as free delivery anywhere? The supplier is paying a courier and you are paying the supplier - advertising "free delivery" is just a marketing trick to draw us in.

I think the Post Office has a legal responsibility to provide a service to all of the UK for the same price, private couriers do not.

And Luxembourg is considerably closer to Cameraworld in London/Chelmsford/Stevenage (pick you branch) than is Lossiemouth!

[daggerfan]

Thanks for your distance comparison, but I did geography at school. The point I was trying to make was that Cameraworld (there are other retailers!) can deliver to some countries outwith the UK for the same price as delivery to the Scottish Highlands. I obviously chose the wrong country as an example. France and Germany are also included, and Toulouse and Berlin are further from Cameraworld's London branch than Lossiemouth!

And sticking with Cameraworld as an example, a buyer in, say, Berwick pays the same for a lens as a customer walking into the company's branch in Stevenage. So the Berwick buyer is receiving the lens at their address for no extra cost, ie delivered free.

[roger4]

Your right, it's free to the customer in Berwick, but it's not free to the retailer. So the reality is that the walk-in customer is subsidising the free-delivery one, in that the supplier makes more profit from walk-in than from couriered ones.

Perhaps from now on I should ask shop-keepers who offer free delivery, for a £15 discount if I collect it myself!

[lazybinman]

Lets not get started on companies that class all areas of Scotland outside Glasgow and Edinburgh as offshore. Had a Glasgow company refuse to deliver to St Andrews as we were in the 'Highlands and Islands' !!!

[C24]

I agree that using the phrase “free delivery” or something similar is something of a con but in this case paying £15.00 to have a lens delivered to Lossiemouth is worth paying.
For me to drive to Lossiemouth with my lens would cost a fortune in fuel and time to say nothing of the aggravation of Covi-19 rule breaking etc. (The English are Cumming...)

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