Last time I needed a new phone for home, I purchased a 3-in-1 cordless home telephone system from Telstra Shop. It was a cool DORO model with all of the super mega functionality. I walked in there, the price was slashed and it was a very good deal with a 12 month warranty etc. It looked like a great phone all wrapped up in a nice box, so what did I have to lose.

Unfortunately like a lot of modern day appliances, my phones experienced some technical problems about a month after I’d bought them. For some reason, the message recorder would no longer play back any of the messages and was making unusual noises. It is really like pin the tail on the donkey a lot of the time when you buy a complex piece of modern technology. A lot of the time the smallest thing goes wrong, causing the whole system to behave unpredictably - electronic gadgets are very complex and usually irreparable.

Without going expanding on the countless phone calls and in-store confrontations, the result was a 6 month turn around for Telstra Shop to present me a full refund. They had originally sent it away for repair lending me some terrible basic wall phone as a replacement. But after 6 months of sequential stuff-ups, I was successful in convincing them to refund my money - which wasn’t part of their original policy and had been constantly refused to me up until that point.

When I have had similar problems with modern appliances purchased from Kmart, I take the item back as well packed as I can and am always refunded the full purchase amount - no questions asked. Even if you no longer have the original packaging, they still don’t care. This kind of awesome attitude realises that modern goods don’t work every single time, and that you may be unlucky and purchase a bad egg or lemon. They don’t make you wait a month while they send it away for repair, severely inconveniencing like Telstra Shop do, they give you back every cent there and then. You can walk back in and try your luck on another item if you have the courage and/or time.

That’s why I will never purchase another appliance from Telstra Shop and will stick to places who adopt the Kmart approach. Customer service gets my business every single time, even if the price is marginally higher.

Australia Post has certainly undergone oodles of change within the past decade.

Their shops have migrated from functional post offices into powerful retail outlets and bill paying stations.

They, like any other business must evolve within their environment in order to profit and survive. And seeing as email has recently impacted their profit from ordinary letters by AUD$57m, you can’t blame them. Actually, they seem to have positioned themselves well enough and early enough to not run out of puff any time soon.

As a customer wanting to send parcels/packages worldwide on a regular basis, I am becoming frustrated. A normal scenario is for 10+ customers to be in front of me, all of them paying paper bills with cash. Armed with an array of $50 notes, they present anything from land rate notices to child support statements. The kind of customer who doesn’t understand the internet and doesn’t want to. Not just elderly people either. Elderly people I can understand not wanting to change how they’ve always done things. However, there are plenty of young, active looking culpurates.

I usually want to send a package to Japan, or pickup something that I bought off Ebay. But I have become part of a minority of customers genuinely wanting to send or collect something against this army of bill-payers. I choose to pay my bills electronically (usually via BPAY) yet I’m penalised by those who refuse to evolve. Great for Australia Post as they’re making a fortune from it - it certainly isn’t in their interest to upset the applecart. With Ebay and online trading in general strongly gaining in numbers, senders and receivers are on the increase. Convenience and value for these senders and receivers is a growing market.

How about a separate queue for traditional postage services?

The internet is killing the traditional paper letter, yet creating new business for parcels and packages - the logistics industry.

One company I have found to be highly convenient is Pack and Send. Their office network is growing and you just cannot beat the convenience.

1. Park car at front of Pack & Send office
2. Shop assistant helps you with awkward item
3. Sign a form and pay them some money

Pricing is still considerably more than Australia Post, but so is the service level. Logistics prices in Australia are sure to level out in the coming years as we start sending and receiving more things thanks to the global network that the internet is.