Posted on February 4th, 2009 by Darien Graham-Smith

A hidden hazard of eBay

A few days ago, this arrived for me. It’s my £250 Challenge PC, as packaged up by the seller and delivered to me by Parcelforce.

If you look closely (click on the picture for a larger view), you may notice that it didn’t actually arrive in pristine condition. The box was clearly battered and crushed in transit, developing a big split up the side through which the contents could easily have fallen out.

Of course, parcels get squished and thrown about all the time. That’s why commercial PC retailers encase their systems in weapons-grade polystyrene before allowing them anywhere near a courier.

But when you buy on eBay, you leave the safe dispatch of your goods in the hands of an individual – an individual who may naively imagine that the kindly lady at the Post Office will ensure no harm comes to their lovingly-packaged item.

The breakable truth

As those of us who send and receive PC’s every day know, the sad reality is that even as you skip happily out the door, that kindly lady is handing your parcel to a lorry-driving wideboy to whom it is a matter of utter indifference whether your parcel arrives intact, or at all. Go ahead, write “FRAGILE” on the box – it’ll still just get chucked in the back of the van with all the other fragile boxes.

Maybe I’m being unfair. You get the service you pay for, and if we were really serious about things like “THIS WAY UP” and “DO NOT BEND” we’d pay for our packages to go by taxi. We don’t, for the same reason we take the tube ourselves.

But as I say, the man in the street probably doesn’t appreciate just how much protection a PC system needs if it’s to survive the ordeal of parcel post. And even if he does, he’s unlikely to have the right materials to hand. My seller conscientiously surrounded my PC in rolls and rolls of bubble-wrap, which did nothing whatsoever for the structural integrity of the box.

In the end, there’s no one really to blame for this: it’s just an unhappy disjoint between our (not unreasonable) expectations of parcel delivery, and the (not unreasonable) reality.

But it is, very clearly, just one more reason to keep your fingers firmly crossed when you buy from eBay.

Tags: couriers, ebay, pc

Posted in: Random

Permalink | Trackback

Follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Social Bookmark this article: What is this?

10 Responses to “ A hidden hazard of eBay ”

Allan Simpson Says:
February 4th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Is the contents alright?
Michael Bourne Says:
February 4th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
We have decided at work that putting a Fragile sticker on any parcel we send just means it gets thrown underarm rather than the full overarm chuck!
technogeist Says:
February 5th, 2009 at 8:38 am
The packaging is not fit for purpose.

Large weighty items need robust packaging with plenty of crush space to prevent damage.
This is negligence by the sender and not the responsibility of *any* carrier to ensure the contents are properly protected.

I used to work in this sector, and customers are lucky that anything arrives at all once the packaging separates from its contents. So count your blessing that it arrived.
Jez Says:
February 5th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Saying that no one is to blame is utter nonsense.

Of course the Seller is to blame.

Only last week I sold a PC Case (a rather nice Lian-Li Aluminium one) on Ebay. I knew full well how well packaged it came when I bought it new nearly 7 years ago, so I knew that I needed to go somewhere near to those sorts of lengths to package it myself if it were to arrive undamaged.

And it took me literally all morning to wrap it very very carefully in the custom made (and especially bought) large double layered cardboard box.

Even then because I didn’t have any polystyrene at home and used whatever paper / bubble wrap I had, I was still very worried that it might still get damaged.

As the previous poster said, there must be ‘crush space’ around the item – no good sending (for example) a Monitor wrapped only in parcel paper !
Santa Says:
February 5th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Also important to leave somewhere for the air in the box to escape when it gets squashed. If you hermetically seal a package then it will literally burst when other goods are put on top of it.
A Clue... Says:
February 6th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
The clue was in the word ParcelForce… lol
tri-sli Says:
February 7th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Having lived in Japan for the past five years and using the net for the bulk of my shopping, I have yet to experience a box even vaguely scuffed. In fact, one slightly damaged box I received had seemingly been patched up mid-transit to hide any deficiencies. It makes we wonder why we put up with this level of service. If other countries can manage it, why can’t we? I honestly think they should take the Royal out of Mail.
Steve Cassidy Says:
February 8th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I must say I agree about Parcelforce. Having had lots of technical bits come and go from Schloss Cassidy over the years, I find that the really big deliveries tend to come in some very surprsing ways. My two most expensive bits of kit over the years were an HP cluster server at about £22k rrp, and an XServe RAID, at a bit less.

Both arrived in small delivery vans – sub Transit sized – operated by independent couriers. The guys doing the delivering knew what they were wworking with, how to secure it in transit, and were happy to help with moving it into position. Since seeing these deliveries, I have been inclined to get independent courier quotes well before going to the big names for any delivery.

And above a certain value of purchase on Ebay, I go and get the item myself. Ignoring cars, so far my peak purchase was an HP 9308 enterprise switch, from a guy whose warehouse is here:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=49.655738,8.208075&spn=0.007272,0.006813&z=17

Easy to do, let me check the goods before I authorised the payment, and I could eat grapes from the vineyard out the back while waiting for him to turn up!
Paul Says:
March 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am
The name said it all PARCELFARCE. Plus the seller should have least invested in adecent roll of tape, 75mm wide which shoud have been put around the box at 1/3 & 2/3 on all axis. This would at least have held it together. Tight wrapping a double layer box onto the shrink wrap would have helped the integrity.

My most recent large item on ebay was a 19″ LCD which came in a great buuble of bubble wrap wedged in a large double layer box. Got to be the best packed item I have received, conratulations to the sender.
Laura Daly Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Hi,
I sell all the time on ebay and I make sure all my packages are in packing which is able to withstand what’s in it. Unlike this seller who clearly just threw the PC into the box. Not good enough. I have had people praise my packaging and its just reused material and the fact that I keep all my original boxes and packaging. Sad I know but makes life easier.