The real reason for online delivery delays in South Africa

[Jamie McKane]

The real reason for online delivery delays in South Africa

MyBroadband recently received several complaints from Loot customers regarding delayed deliveries and poor customer service.

One reader told MyBroadband they had submitted an order on 22 May and received their money back, rather than their order being delivered, a month later.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

“Since the full release of ecommerce, towards the back end of May

Surely they mean end of April?

 

[Captain Beer]

I didn't read the article but..

It's because everyone's buying the P40 lite right?

 

[RedViking]

I feel for Loot. I have had nothing but excellent service from them up to lockdown for years. Even Takealot struggle with deliveries also nothing but excellent service up to lockdown. It is already tough to have an online shop successful in South Africa competing with Takealot. People don't look at the external forces effecting an online shop, they just remember what they experienced and the rest goes out the door.

Hope Loot manage to recover from this and get their reputation back again. Still a lot of people I need to convince to buy the Philips Airfryer XL from them.

 

[Skerminkel]

This comment will probably not be allowed under the Discquss comments, so:
Dear MyBB, I have commented this previously.
It is your duty as good South Africans to inform your readers that Loot is owned by Iqbal Surve and we should not be supporting this state capturer.

Edit: In case you need convincing:
From https://www.loot.co.za/welcome: "Loot is a member of the Independent Media group of companies."
From https://www.independentmedia.co.za/our-company/about-us/: "Shareholders • Sekunjalo Media Consortium – majority shareholder"
From https://www.sekunjalo.com/dr-iqbal-surve/ "Dr Survé is a Physician, Entrepreneur and an ardent Philanthropist, ..... After leaving medicine, he founded the Sekunjalo Group."
(Read the rest of the text on the last link if you want to cringe.)

 

[Swa]

This comment will probably not be allowed under the Discquss comments, so:
Dear MyBB, I have commented this previously.
It is your duty as good South Africans to inform your readers that Loot is owned by Iqbal Surve and we should not be supporting this state capturer.

Edit: In case you need convincing:
From https://www.loot.co.za/welcome: "Loot is a member of the Independent Media group of companies."
From https://www.independentmedia.co.za/our-company/about-us/: "Shareholders • Sekunjalo Media Consortium – majority shareholder"
From https://www.sekunjalo.com/dr-iqbal-surve/ "Dr Survé is a Physician, Entrepreneur and an ardent Philanthropist, ..... After leaving medicine, he founded the Sekunjalo Group."
(Read the rest of the text on the last link if you want to cringe.)

Just placed my order

 

[furpile]

I have been lucky with Takealot, my few orders the last weeks have all been delivered a day or 2 early, including one earlier this week.. However I make sure to only order stuff they have in stock, I think that helps.

 

[skusku]

Support the local smaller companies instead of trying to save a few bucks, they also have stock you know.

 

[Wysjoumuis]

Is Hellopeter only for negative reviews? All businesses have terrible scores on that site.

 

[Snyper564]

Is Hellopeter only for negative reviews? All businesses have terrible scores on that site.

No but you need to remember people are quick to complain and slow to compliment if they even bother doing that

 

[Snyper564]

Support the local smaller companies instead of trying to save a few bucks, they also have stock you know.

Agreed I ordered a STC1000 temp controller from rebel pets at 3pm with free shipping today and it arrives tomorrow thats just insane service!

 

[markings]

Is Hellopeter only for negative reviews? All businesses have terrible scores on that site.

Complaints are free. A business has to pay to reply to the complaints.

 

[Solitude]

I ordered an item on the 15th of May. It eventually got cancelled on the 22nd of June. I was so angry by that stage. But they gave me a voucher. So I ordered a new item on the 22nd of June and that got cancelled and I got another voucher. So I ordered a new item. Hopefully this one will come.

I got really frustrated by Loot but I can imagine it must be tough for them.

 

[markings]

Maybe people start to realize what a supply chain is and how intricate they may be. Maybe they start to appreciate the work and coordination necessary so that one can walk into a shop and buy something off the shelf, or have it delivered to one's door.

 

[CommonSense]

This comment will probably not be allowed under the Discquss comments, so:
Dear MyBB, I have commented this previously.
It is your duty as good South Africans to inform your readers that Loot is owned by Iqbal Surve and we should not be supporting this state capturer.

Edit: In case you need convincing:
From https://www.loot.co.za/welcome: "Loot is a member of the Independent Media group of companies."
From https://www.independentmedia.co.za/our-company/about-us/: "Shareholders • Sekunjalo Media Consortium – majority shareholder"
From https://www.sekunjalo.com/dr-iqbal-surve/ "Dr Survé is a Physician, Entrepreneur and an ardent Philanthropist, ..... After leaving medicine, he founded the Sekunjalo Group."
(Read the rest of the text on the last link if you want to cringe.)

People will buy from where they can get the items the cheapest.

If you feel that you don't want to buy from someone or support them because it is against your conscience, then all good. Others might simply not care.

If we had to stop supporting everyone who was ever involved in wrongdoing then we would all starve and buy nothing.

Who is still drinking Nescafe/Ricoffee coffee and Nesquick and the thousands of products which Nestle makes?
They have been in bed with the Mugabe government for years when farms were just taken away and given to Grace Mugabe. Nestle happily just bought from her then.

So many other cases. ...

Your concerns are valid, but people have a short memory and most just don't care.....

 

[Rocket-Boy]

Im sure most of the customers would be more understanding if there was communication.
Even if you have to work on a minimized staff its not hard to have a few of your normal staff members at home replying to emails etc.

 

[stefan9]

Don't care for the excuses, not my problem. The only thing I care for is you getting me my product on time and keeping me informed at all times.

The only products I make exceptions for is handmade products.

Stop crying and fix your issues.

 

[j4ck455]

An anonymous source told MyBroadband that third-party sellers are being held responsible for capacity problems at Takealot’s warehouses.

The source claimed that many of these sellers face their products being delisted and possibly being removed from the platform entirely.

Taekalot has declined to comment on the topic.

Should there not be independent confirmation of what the anonymous source claimed to be true?

 

[Shadowchaser1]

And still SA's don't learn. SA has no service delivery period. Any company is quick in charging you, but delivering it, is another story. Really no company foresaw online increased business. Jeez. Where I live now (Europe) different story. Some companies have built in penalty clauses, if they don't deliver on time yet SA still has not grasped the concept.

 

[IndigoIdentity]

And still SA's don't learn. SA has no service delivery period. Any company is quick in charging you, but delivering it, is another story. Really no company foresaw online increased business. Jeez. Where I live now (Europe) different story. Some companies have built in penalty clauses, if they don't deliver on time yet SA still has not grasped the concept.

The companies selling the items are selling them in good faith that collection and delivery will occur at a reasonable pace.

Unfortunately, there's no courier companies in SA that seem to be able to make that happen consistently.

I guess maybe it's a competitive business so profits are low and you need volumes, if you don't have that then you need to sacrifice on quality. A lot of these companies end up with limited staff who don't get paid much and have lots of work, after some time at that even if they start out doing great they just get demotivated to the point where they couldn't care less about the job.

And that is where the service delivery problems comes in... On a good day, using a courier company in SA goes something like this:

Collection: Too much to do, couldn't be bothered, next day same story, third time lucky.
Long haul: Works like clockwork for the most part.
Delivery: Customer takes time off work to accept delivery, courier lies about going to the address and states no one was available to accept the delivery but couldn't be bothered to call the contact when making the delivery, second time success, if you're lucky / follow up / complain to ops enough.