Australia Post customer lashes out over ‘scam’ hurting small businesses: ‘So frustrating’

by Admin
December 23, 2024

Hero Packaging and Sell Anything Online founder Anaita Sarkar has criticised Australia Post over its handling of lost parcels. · Source: Instagram/TikTok

An Australian business owner has lashed out at Australia Post over a “scam” she claims has cost her business money and lost her customers. Millions of packages are delivered to Aussies each week but inevitably there are some that don’t make it to their intended destination.

Hero Packaging co-founder Anaita Sarkar said she has been using Australia Post for her business for the last six years but has run into problems with packages going missing or being delivered to the wrong doorstep. Sarkar told Yahoo Finance it was a “frustrating” situation many small businesses found themselves in.

“Obviously things get lost in the mail, that’s not the issue. The issue is that it’s their job to deliver from point A to point B and when things don’t get delivered or things go wrong, they need to say, ‘That’s our responsibility’, and therefore the brand will be compensated,” Sarkar, who is also the founder of marketing company Sell Anything Online, said.

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“And then the brand can not take money out of its own accounts to then compensate the customer or resend another package.

“The problem is every time something gets lost, it’s never Australia Post’s fault, it’s always the brand. It’s just so frustrating.”

Sarkar said she sends out between 75 and 200 orders a day with Australia Post for her compostable packaging business.

She claimed that “once a day or once every two days” she gets contacted by a customer who has had issues with their delivery, whether that be a lost package, a package delivered to the wrong address or slow delivery.

Anaita Sarkar and Australia Post — Sarkar said lost parcels cost ended up costing businesses money to resend parcels to customers and also led to reputational damage. · Source: Instagram/Getty

“More than the cost to the business, it’s the cost of the brand reputation,” the 37-year-old Sydney founder said.

While Sarkar couldn’t give a figure as to how much this cost her business in total, she said it was “really, really expensive” when multiple cases were added up.

“Our mailers are quite bulky so if shipping costs us $40 to a customer, then it is the cost of the mailers as well as the shipping,” she said.

“We’ll usually resend it Express, even if they’ve only paid for regular, so it gets there on time. Or we’ll go with another courier, which is even more expensive, to make sure it gets there the next day or the same day.

“So we’re looking at, for example, $80 to $100 just to make sure that customer isn’t unhappy with us and bring them back to us again.”

Brittany Forrest, owner of sustainable baby product business Cloth Bums, told Yahoo Finance that lost packages were a “killer” for small businesses like hers.

Forrest estimated she was losing between $4,000 and $5,000 a year due to Australia Post issues, which she had to factor into her bottom line.

“Often our packages are $200, $300, $400 and sometimes even more. When we are sending a couple of hundred dollars out of the door in stock and paying for a shipment that size, we are probably paying $25 in shipping,” she said.

“It’s an expensive exercise when you crunch the numbers and it hurts.”

An Australia Post spokesperson told Yahoo Finance it delivered 9.5 million parcels each week on average, with the “vast majority” reaching their destination safely.

“We take our responsibility to small businesses extremely seriously. In the small number of instances where parcels are lost or damaged, Australia Post refunds postage costs and in some of those cases provides compensation,” the spokesperson said.

“Small businesses are encouraged to purchase Transit Cover.”

Both Sarkar and Forrest said they did not purchase Transit Cover for their parcels, which applies individually to parcels rather than as a yearly fee.

“It is so high for the chance that it will get lost and then you still have to go through the process and there is no guarantee they will take responsibility and give you that money back,” Sarkar said.

“Some people have had success using insurance, those are usually small business owners. When you start getting to a medium scale to large scale business, you’re not paying that insurance.”

Sarkar, who co-founded Hero Packaging with her husband Vikram in 2018, claimed Australia Post also made it more expensive for businesses to use their own packaging instead of Australia Post’s.

She said this made it hard for businesses who wanted to switch to more sustainable options.

“It should really be the same because you’re sending the same weight, the same size, same shape and I’ve seen customers actually measure with a ruler to make sure that the package that they send is the exact same shape and size as the prepaid [Australia Post] satchels,” she said.

“We’ve lost, I can’t even tell you how many customers.”

Australia Post told Yahoo Finance customers who used their own packaging were charged a flat rate depending on weight, while Australia Post packaging incurred a flat rate depending on the size of the packaging.

“Postage costs for some parcels may be cheaper using Australia Post packaging,” the spokesperson explained.

“In general, using Australia Post packaging minimises manual handling and provides efficiencies for our network, as address and postage labels, barcode positioning and colours are more easily read by our scanners.”

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