Items on eBay

[Tazzmac]

G'day denimini ..Fellow Aussie here ... My recent EBAY purchases difference between Australia and a UK. based outlet is pretty incredible ..Rarely bought overseas but this may have changed my mind,
A few weeks before Christmas I wanted to add another leather kilt to my collection and found an Aussie outlet that offered a pretty nice looking brown kilt/skirt similar to the black one I had ..at $ 145 . Postage $19.95 so about 165 Australian dollars all up .. Delivery time was reasonable ..Didn't buy immediately ..
Before I bought as a comparison I found pretty quickly an outlet based in England .. Just for fun I clicked on a nice looking brown kilt (leather) that had custom options and sent a message ..Within an hour I had a reply from Addy ..Was told that certainly the custom option was at no extra cost , the time to make the kilt would be two days and dispatch from the Berne (I think) manufacturer that they used and next day after that dispatch would happen .. Price of the kilt was 67 GPB or about $131 Australian dollars ..Cost of postage from Switzerland was $32 Australian .. Whole cost was $163 . Guess what ?. That's actually what happened at well within the delivery time of 10 days it arrived .Turned up in 8 business days.. Not only that but it has the beautiful soft leather , quality side straps , perfect stitching and a proper fully opening kilt ..Perfect fit too ..Absolutely love it . I decided to also buy the Aussie based kilt from NSW. to give me a third leather one .. So I went into EBAY site and it went like this ..
Requested a confirmation of 20 "inch option like the UK and my previous black one which finally got confirmed 24 hours later . I put that down to Christmas rush .. Ended up buying as coupons dropped price from $145 to $127 but postage remained at $19.95 .. Bit the bullet and paid for ... No confirmation came for a couple of days , let that slide but waited for dispatch prior to Christmas..Happened on Dec 23rd about six days after purchase .Delivery time was quoted for 5-7 business days..No tracking available unlike the British based one .. It arrived 9 business days . It was well packaged though .. What really ticked me off was the lack of message replies when asking for Order Status on three occasions given there was no tracking forthcoming even though there was supposed to be .. It's of decent similar quality to my black one but a long way short of the UK/Swiss one . There were valuable lessons learned by myself on EBAY purchases due to all this but at least both of the kilts arrived intact and turned out similar price overall ..Unit cost + postage .. Things you learn eh ?

[denimini]

Yes eBay can vary a lot depending on the vendor. The UK has a lot better range of skirts that I like but postage is the deal breaker on a secondhand skirt.
The Swedish clogs I buy come via a business in the UK and arrive in much the same time as from an Australian city.

[Tazzmac]

Dear old Australia Post eh..Other than kilts I buy other clothing , and car items, watch repair stuff , model rail items , all sorts of things on EBAY and online stores ..Living in Tasmania is great but normal postage via the two Spirits (ferries) over Bass Strait can be very slow ..If decent price Express Post option is available I do that ..Ah , the pitfalls of living in paradise eh..

[denimini]

Dear old Australia Post eh...........If decent price Express Post option is available I do that ..Ah , the pitfalls of living in paradise eh..

Where I live the PO offers express post and I asked how they could do that because all mail goes out on the same truck. They said that they were instructed to hold ordinary mail for 2 or 3 days before sending. Hence there is no express post and unless you pay the extortion fee they will slow it down and there is actually more handling (thus cost) for ordinary mail than express.

[Ozdelights]

I understand after it leaves your truck ordinary mail is sorted and handled by day workers 5 days a week. Express post is on-forwarded expeditiously.

[denimini]

Thanks. Nice to know there is some advantage for the extra cost. I do recollect that ordinary mail was faster before express post was introduced.