Campaign needed to shake-up carriers

Sir,

As relative newcomers to Lorn, we have learned to endure the practice of parcel delivery companies that are happy to ship to Glasgow on their standard UK rates but then double or treble these rates to go 50 miles further to Oban.

When I have complained in the past, I have been told it is my fault for living on an island, although our postcode is definitely on the mainland – although we have suffered month-long delays before now while our deliveries toured the islands.

This practice, of largely English companies that profess a desire to keep us in the union, of treating us as foreigners within our own country is bad enough, but this year we are experiencing far worse.

Obviously stung by the loss of business these excessive charges cause to major online retailers, this festive season we no longer find exorbitant shipping charges as soon as the checkout discovers our postcode, but simply get a message ‘Does not ship to the UK’, often underneath a message saying ‘Free delivery in UK’.

This new practice is worst with eBay retailers (many of whom ship further to get to London than to us) but is also gaining favour with many famous high street names. We need a campaign to enlighten retailers as to how much business they lose by using these parttime shippers.

A simple expedient is to get goods delivered by the Post Office, which not only knows where we live, but also ships there at the standard UK rate.

We need retailers to choose carriers who will actually deliver to the whole country at competitive prices, or allow us to make that choice for them. Meanwhile, it needs to become clear to the part-time couriers that they will not be able to stay in business by cherry-picking the easy deliveries and ignoring their clients’ other customers.