Why Dont You Blog?

The UK of 2008 is an interesting, if odd, place to live. Today our esteemed Prime Minister has decided the way to reduce the cost of living is to tell people to stop wasting food.

Blimey. This is the person who used to be the chancelor of the exchequer…. Scary.

It is an interesting idea that people are simultaneously eating too much food and wasting too much food but both seem like a sneaky attempt by a weasle government to pass the blame for another one of societies problems on the general public. Now, I am borderline in support of blaming the population for everything, although this time I think the PM has got it wrong. (Well, he routinely gets it wrong which is why I am devastated to think I will welcome a conservative government).

This outburst is another one of Labours attempts to demonise and punish the poor and the working class. According to the BBC:

A government study says the UK wastes 4m tonnes of food every year, adding £420 to a family’s shopping bills. (…) The food policy study also says the average UK household throws away £8 of leftovers a week, yet spends 9% of its income on food.

Now the slight disparity in the numbers aside, this is an interesting set of figures to throw your hat on. If you are a poor, low income family then £420 a year will be very significant. I refuse for one second to believe that people on the median UK income or lower are actually wasting this much money per year.

Flipping it around, if you are above the median income this becomes a trivial sum of money. For someone on £30k per year (a shell lorry driver for instance), this represents about two days wages spread over the course of a year. Not really something that is going to make them sit up and take notice. I am not a “rich” person but today I applied for a job that pays one and a half times that sum of money per day. If I get the job, worrying that a few bits and pieces I have left over will amount to under six hours work per year is the last thing on my mind.

Now, the second sentence is slightly more interesting. Interesting in that it uses two different types of figures. This implies that a family on £16,000 per year is spending £1440 a year on food. Out of this £27 per week, they are “wasting” £8 so, in reality are living on £19 per week for food. I refuse to accept that for a nanosecond. I would like to see you get your “five a day” for that paltry sum. On the flipside, the £30,000 a year family spend a massive £2700 a year on food, or £52 per week. They are significantly more efficient however, as they actually manage to eat £44 of food.

Are we, as a nation, to accept that the poor family who are basically struggling to eat still manage to throw away nearly 1/3rd of their food, however the indulgent rich are protecting the economy by eating it all. In all honesty, it confuses me a touch.

A second, and possibly more important line of thought is about why people throw food away. Sometimes it is food people have cooked and no longer want and I assume some of it will be the result of people chosing to not eat certain parts of the foodstuff (I will never eat a pigs brains for example…). However, looking at the list of biggest waste sources it seems the problem is throwing away food that has gone past its sell by date.

There is the usual call for people to stop going to supermarket, stop buying their goods in bulk (then allowing it to spoil) etc. This has a seductive ring of truth around it, however it doesn’t stand up to close examination.

Take for example the two different shopping methods. I can use a supermarkets online shop to order my goods (pre-selected based on previous purchases) in about 20 minutes. Add in the delivery and this whole deal takes up about 40 minutes a week.

Compare that with going to the shops every day to buy fresh, small portioned, perishable goods. The journey alone to the nearest “corner shop” will take me 5 mins to drive (but is massively uneconomical with the fuel) or about 15 mins each way to walk. Add in 10 mins walking around the shop (and ignoring any impulse buying) and paying for my small loaf, banana and orange. All told, this would occupy around 40 minutes a day or over 3 hours a week (ignoring weekends). If I was on minimum wage, this would be the equivalent of £16 per week spent simply collecting the food. If I get the £600 a day job I want that is, in effect £225 a week…

It seems that £8 wasted is money well spent.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Popularity: 17% [?]

Now, given that this blog has an amazingly technical readership (who often put Heather and me to shame) it will probably come as no surprise to most of you that Ebay is actually a more expensive way of buying things. However, it was a bit of a shock to me.

Today, I was looking around for books on the CISSP course and out of idle curiosity I did a search for CISSP for dummies (yeah, yeah). On ebay today, the cheapest I could find was £13.99 plus £2.75 postage (visit auction page - auction ends 12 May 08 so the link might die).

Compare against Amazon.co.uk where the same book costs £13.49 plus £2.75 postage (here).

Now this is a trivial example, and most people wouldn’t bat an eyelid over saving 50p (I would but that is because no one ever makes donations here and I am poor). However, if we look at it a bit further…

Ebay has the CISSP Exam Cram 2 book available as a Buy It Now for the discounted price of £21.37 plus £2.75 postage. Can Amazon beat that?

Well, yes. On Amazon, the CISSP Exam Cram 2 is £14.99 (postage seems to be a grey area here but I think it will be £2.75). That is no mere £0.50 saving, that is a whopping £6.38.

There is a change in the balance of power over the CISSP all in one exam guide (Ebay, Amazon) where Ebay is actually about £3 cheaper, but by and large you actually pay for the privilege of using Ebay. It strikes me, from talking to all the ebayers I know, that people have a strange attitude towards Ebay. When people go to shop there, the idea of checking prices becomes alien.

For some reason, people seem to get caught in some weird mindset when they are faced with an auction and apparently regularly pay prices close to, or in excess of, the market rate for an item. I have experienced this a bit in the past when I’ve been bidding on cameras or camera parts - I have never won a single auction because almost every one of them has gone over the price you could buy it from a camera shop.

Why on Earth does Ebay have this effect on people? Great for sellers but, methinks, not so good for the buyer…

Popularity: 28% [?]

Popularity: 28% [?]

Now, in the past I have been very quick to rant here about the slightest customer service infraction - mainly this is because Ebuyer and Pipex are terminally bad companies - so it is only fair that I try to re-dress the balance at least occasionally.

So, with this in mind, I need to say a big well done to Amazon.co.uk. They have an actual understanding about customer service and appear able to maintain their promises.

A few months ago I was sent £20 in Amazon vouchers, so eventually I decided to spend them. Not really having anything in mind, I spent quite a while searching Amazon looking for the right combination of things to hit the £20 mark exactly and not incur any P&P charges (yes, I am that cheapskate). Eventually I found some filters for my camera so I ordered them. Everything went smoothly and the order was processed then confirmed.

A few hours later I glanced over the confirmation email and, to my horror, I realised I’d ordered the wrong size filter (52mm instead of 67mm if anyone cares) and panicked trying to cancel the order. In previous dealings with e-commerce sites, this is normally where everything goes wrong, however with Amazon it was painless, quick and effective. They were even able to refund the gift voucher without any problems at all.

Being unable to find any suitable filters of the correct size, I cracked and bought a few books (history, Pratchett and the like), going over the £20 but not by much. As I live a few miles more remote than the middle of nowhere, I was expecting the delivery charges for this (heavier) bundle to be painful. When I have bought from other suppliers (who also use Royal Mail to deliver) postage charges have been astronomical but no, Amazon offered the normal range of options, including the free “standard delivery.”

Despite the site being littered with warnings about the Royal Mail strikes causing problems to post etc., I decided I was in no hurry and standard delivery (estimated 5-7 days) would be fine. This was during the evening of 10 Oct 07. I placed the order, got all the confirmations (and this time there was no panic over the thread sizes…) and all was well.

Today (13 Oct 07), I get home from work only to discover the parcel has arrived. So, in effect, the standard delivery took less than 3 days to complete. To be honest, this is pretty good going. If some one posts me a single page of A4 it normally takes that much time to get here, if not longer. When I have ordered from other companies, I have had to pay a fortune (often as much as 20% of the cost of the total order) for items which have taken a week or two to get here from the centre of England.

I realise it is strange to say well done to a company for doing what they should do (i.e. serve their customers), but sadly it has become a rare thing in my experience. Companies no longer care about negative opinions, because largely they are all rubbish. In this instance though, Amazon have exceeded my expectations and, in doing so, have greatly increased the chances I will shop there again. Will they care? I doubt it. But I will.

(Note 1: Interestingly, in this instance, Amazon exceeded my expectations by ensuring they were low to begin with. Amazon emphasised how the parcel could take up to a week, longer with the postal strikes. This meant anything less was a bonus to me. Too many e-commerce organisations try to boast about getting things to you before you even realised you wanted them that disappointment is sure to follow.)

(Note 2: One negative point. Despite the books being supposedly “brand new” all four show distinct signs of wear. One is pretty dog eared and all smell of stale tobacco. If I was planning to sell these on eBay, I would never get away with calling them new… The parcel used to wrap the four up was open at both ends, so I am amazed nothing fell out and was lost. I think this includes a well done to the local postie. )

[tags]Amazon, e-commerce, society, culture, raves, Good Shop, Postal Strikes, Royal Mail, Books, Shopping, eBay, eBuyer, Pipex, Customer Service[/tags]

Popularity: 35% [?]

Popularity: 35% [?]

Recently there have been lots of problems with 1and1 and their mail servers. As a 1and1 customer (this site is hosted on a 1and1 server), I have been unable to get reliable email delivery for the last three days. I have tried sending an email to customer services (well…), I have tried using their online contact forms and I have scoured their home page for information on the outage. Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing to tell me if it is my problem or their problem, no idea of how long it wil last or any possible solutions.

Fortunately today I found an article on the Register where 1and1 make the following statement:

Yesterday, a number of UK customers experienced some delay in receiving inbound email. The delay was due to a surge in email volumes over our email servers. Our email system continued to receive all email during this time, with only its delivery to inboxes being delayed.

The email delay was handled according to set procedure, emails were queued and stored and no email was lost during this time.

The technical issue was resolved and all emails involved are being delivered safely. Only 1&1 email users were affected.

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers due to the queuing of emails.

Today, 1&1’s UK Customer Control Panel was temporarily unavailable for a very short time whilst systems were maintained.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but are customers of 1and1 now expected to have to search the Register to find out about service outages and problems? Not only that, but the problem was certainly in place before yesterday and as of 1815 hours (GMT) today it was not fixed.

I am truly amazed that 1&1 thinks it can demonstrate such an appaling level of customer service. Why is there no server status or service information page?

Sadly, given the consumer apathy prevalent in the UK, I suspect they will still be “top webhost” this year.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Popularity: 26% [?]

Well to get the ball rolling on Bad Shops, I thought I would address the issues I had shopping with Ebuyer last September. Without going into too much detail for a first post, and I have bought from them quite a few times in the past, this last order was enough to ensure that, no matter what the potential savings, I wont shop there again.

Basically, I made an order for a 32″ LCD TV, a new graphics card, some mini-SD Memory and DVD blanks. Nice and simple. After I made the order I was sent an email from their customer services saying the order had failed (no particular reason) and could I try again. I duly recreated the order and this time it was successful. Too successful. Upon checking my account page, it appeared both orders had cleared and I was going to get two televisions. Wonderful.

I raised an “eNote” (this is a cumbersome system) which had little effect and I was informed by the system it could take up to 10 days to process the eNote - while the deliveries were going to take place in 5 days. Not wishing to be billed twice, I eventually called customer services and eventually got one order cancelled. At this point, while it was annoying that the eBuyer customer fulfilment software was erratic, it was not a major problem. Now for the rest of my rant, this was before expensive orders had free delivery, I had paid extra for the delivery to be within 5 days.
The next day I got an email informing me that my order would be delivered on (cant remember the exact date), which was the Friday that week (the fifth day). As the delivery windows are an entire day, I had to take a day off work. As you can imagine, nothing was delivered. I phoned customer services at 1500 hours only to be told deliveries can be as late as 1800. At 1830 I phoned up to be informed that my order was never going to be shipped anyway as payment had not yet cleared. Obviously dismayed that I had taken a day off work for a shipment which was never going to arrive the customer services assistant bore the brunt of some ire. As the customer services close at 1900, this was never fully resolved and I was informed i would be contacted by eNote with a new delivery date over the weekend.

On Sunday evening I received an eNote telling me the delivery would be on Monday. Lots of notice, but I managed to negotiate a short notice day off work. On Monday, 1800 rolled round and no delivery. Once again I phoned customer services who informed me that no delivery had been scheduled but it would be sent on Tuesday. Obviously at 1800 on a Monday there was no way I could get the time off, but fortunately my wife would be available to collect it.

Now by some miracle at lunchtime on Tuesday a delivery arrived. It was the graphics card. Nothing else. Once more, after work I called customer services to be informed that there had been a problem and the other items would be shipped separately. When I asked when I could expect them, no answer was forthcoming.

On the Wednesday the TV and the mini-SD arrived. Without any warning, other than an eNote sent to me one hour before the delivery informing me it was on the way. Fortunately my neighbours were able to take the delivery which prevented the farce escalating. Still no DVD blanks and now I was informed eBuyer was out of stock of them. Shocking.

Sheer bloody mindedness stopped me cancelling the order, and they duly arrived two weeks later - actually on the day the relevant eNote stated.

After complaining repeatedly to eBuyer by email, eNote and telephone to no avail, I wrote a ranting letter of complaint. The reply was the under their terms and conditions eBuyer do not compensate for any inconveience caused etc., etc., and the best they could offer was to refund the delivery charge. (about £10)

As a result of eBuyers dismal order fulfilment system I lost three days pay waiting for that order which, in the end, took nearly three weeks to deliver. This easily wiped out any savings I may have made based on their prices. As eBuyer is an online retailer, being able to deliver the goods the customer orders when promised is vital. It is probably the single most important part of maintaining customer loyalty and getting a brand recommended by word of mouth. In the past, I have recommended eBuyer. As you may guess, not only will I no longer EVER buy from them again, I would not recommend any one else did and actively advise people to shop elsewhere.

In the great scheme of things, I am only one person and my impact on their business is limited. If the balance of people like their service they will do well. Personally, I find paying slightly more (such as when I bought my new digital camera, it was £30 more but delivered free and exactly when said within a 2 hour time frame) for better customer service is more than worth it.

There may come the day that this blog has a section about which retailers we do recommend. If that happens I will let you know which companies have certainly come through with the goods

Popularity: 21% [?]

Popularity: 21% [?]

Well, its 2007 now so time for a new category. Following recent poor customer experience with a variety of online retailers, I have decided to provide space here to “name and shame” the wrongdooers.

Basically, companies which provide members of Why Dont You…? with poor products or poor customer service will be discussed here. If a company you like gets caught in the spotlight then let us know and we can consider revising our opinions.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Popularity: 17% [?]