post and packing charges

This is a favourite rant of mine but justified I think. Yestersday I sent back an item that I had purchased in a moment of rash folly, a plain white shirt that arrived so horribly creased that I would have had to iron to try on. I hate ironing at the best of times and I was not going to iron a brand new item. So I sent it back. Well it cost me £1.85 second class yet QVC had charged me £4.45p to send it to me. I am aware that they employ staff at to do the sending out but I am finding the charges outrageous and they seem to make no sense. How come it costs £5.45 to send out a vacumn cleaner and only a £ less to post out a cotton shirt. It seems to bear no relation to weight or size.

It's always worth reminding QVC (they read this forum) that we're all baffled and disgruntled with their p&p charges. I'd rather they charged a flat rate per item or better still, a capped total p&p per order...you'd think that'd encourage us to add to our orders? I've raised it at customer events only to be given the stock answer that the system is established and can't be changed, particularly when I've asked them to post items together in the same box. There's so much waste of packaging because every item is sent individually it's sickening and there must be savings to be made by sending items in one box....they could start with TSVs, kinda like the "buymoresavemore" idea so that if you but both L'Occitane, Yankee or whatever alternatives you only pay one p&p.

The way in which presenters avoid mentioning the p&p except when it's free or 99p is pathetic too!

Jude x

P+P price is a recuring theme on here maybe we should do "something" about it as we all seem to think we are being ripped off.Personaly i think it's just another money maker for them on already not so keen prices.If as you say "they" do read this it doesn't seem to make any difference.When i first shopped with them years ago i bought Mrs Snoop a shirt which was poor quality,i paid £3:45 for postage it cost 17p to return ???

Don't get me started! The P&P is outrageous and appears to bear no relation to the weight of the item being sent or the fact it's 2nd class postage.

Like everyone else it really annoys me when it's an item on free P&P and they blabber on about how much we're saving. Funny they never make any mention of the fact that sometimes you're paying nearly an extra £5 for a tiddly item.

I hope they do read this forum because they need a kick up the backside where P&P is concerned and need to realise they have a lot of compeition out there now.

It is stopping me shopping with them, hey that could be a good name for a campaign "is p and p stopping you shopping?" Amazon do such good deals like super saver and the Amazon Prime thing, M and S charge a flat £3.50 per order and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I am now not even buying clearance stuff as it is not really a bargain when it costs half as much again to get it sent out.

They've lost huge amounts of my custom over the years due to inflated p&p:mysmilie_73: it's not as if the dispatch time and delivery times are even worthy of 1st or 2nd class p&p costs!

Also another bug bear is when they bang on this only cost £47 for example in the shops you pay £49 but what about the £5.99pp charges qvc:mysmilie_73:

Unless its an absolute bargain I rarely buy from them, there are far better deals to be had elsewhere with better service imo.

Ask QVC to refund your original P&P charge

A good piece of advice is to ask QVC to refund the original cost of postage. This will only be valid through the Distance Selling Regulations (DSR) if you contact them within 7 days of receipt and say that you are returning an item. I have done this with two recent purchases and although I was not automatically refunded the P&P, when I called CS again, they credited it to my card.

That said, I totally agree that the P&P charges are too high - and I think the delivery times have lengthened.

They beauty buyers I spoke to at NYNY a couple of years ago knew all about this forum and said they did read it.

The problem, for us, is that they still make £millions of sales a year inspite of their p&p so they're unlikely to change. The p&p does give me the incentive to shop around the net and high street but I still buy things from QVC....maybe I should ask for a print-out of all the postage I've spent over the 14 years I've been shopping with them, it could be the ultimate aversion therapy! I'm too much of a coward to know though :mysmilie_81:

J xx

I never could understand how a £1000 ring costs less to send than a £12 mascara. I still think that the excess they charge on some items covers the shortfall against other, more expensive postage costs.

It does put me off buying. I shop around regularly now and just recently managed to find an item from the manufacturer's own website that was cheaper than QVC, was sent with free P&P and arrived on the second day. I wouldn't mind paying the P&P on items if I felt the service received was worth it. After all, you don't leave a tip in a restaurant if the service was bad. I think hard before purchasing now because of the cost and the long wait. "The other side" manage to cap P&P on multiple items, so it's not impossible. (Not that there's much I want to buy now anyway!)

I can't believe they charge so much and use 2nd class post. I recently purchased items on ebay, that were relatively large and heavy. £5.99 P&P and it was here next day via a private courier. If a random ebay seller can do it, QVC surely must be able to!

I ordered the Toxic Beauty book some ladies were talking about from Amazon on Monday. It arrived this morning so less than 48 hours later. It had free P&P, arrived in perfect condition and in the minimum of packaging.

I don't think QVC has a lot to learn from other companies at all. They know ****** well that they hugely overcharge and overpack and take ages but millions of people still buy so why would they change? A few of us moaning on here (and still shopping!) isn't going to change their minds. They're on to a good thing with their P&P and don't they know it!

Tx

I wonder if the p&p money is used to pay the wages of the warehouse staff? :mysmillie_318:

just to add that if anyone at qvc (of any importance!) is reading,I think the P&P charges are shocking too.

I have purchased a couple of things from QVC since xmas - but leading up to christmas - well even the three months before it - I did all my shopping online -and made not one purchase from QVC,because P&P was so good ie free or minimal from other sites.

Mr QVC may not care that he's missing out on my money and he's doing well enough without it - but what if we all feel like this?I wonder if Mr QVC even cares?!

I have always said and I will again. I really believe QVC make money from the postage. Why else will they totally refuse to ship items together.

They could do a deal of order say two or three items in one day and have special shipping rate. I mean its not like your items are shipped out straight away, sometimes sitting for up to three days before leaving the warehouse.

RedT said:

I don't think QVC has a lot to learn from other companies at all. They know ****** well that they hugely overcharge and overpack and take ages but millions of people still buy so why would they change? A few of us moaning on here (and still shopping!) isn't going to change their minds. They're on to a good thing with their P&P and don't they know it!

Tx

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I agree 100%, as long as people keep buying from them there's no reason for them to change.

The only thing to do is look at the cost including P & P when deciding whether to buy or not, as some items e.g. beauty TSVs are still real bargains but others aren't.

donna255 said:

I have always said and I will again. I really believe QVC make money from the postage. Why else will they totally refuse to ship items together.

They could do a deal of order say two or three items in one day and have special shipping rate. I mean its not like your items are shipped out straight away, sometimes sitting for up to three days before leaving the warehouse.

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QVC dont have the items on shelves and pick them individually for each order.

When the items are in the warehouses, they will already be boxed up as individual items (and are probably sent to QVC warehouses from the supplier ready packaged- so they probably dont even have that cost either), and then the label with name etc is just put on and then it is posted. That is why they cannot bundle 2 or 3 items together.

The only way around this would be to create parcels of 2 or 3 together so they could be sent as 2s or 3s....

I do think they overcharge for postage, but I can see why they cant change the way they send packages out if you multi-order

I agree with everything that has been said!!
I never buy from Ideal World, but I know they DO offer capped P&P charges on various shows.
I am also guilty of moaning about the postage charges, but still ordering because it's easier than faffing about on other websites looking for the item a bit cheaper. (Bone Idle, I know). :mysmilie_61:

In QVC's defence though, I bought the Jack LaLanne Juicer on impulse on New Years Eve,(Felt guilty about the weight I had put on), and paid about £6.00 on P&P.
I never even bothered to take it out of the box when it was delivered, just drove straight to the Post Office to return. The return postage cost me £10.91, so they don't seem to have robbed me too much.
For electrical items, my parents always try play.com - Free delivery on everything, and their prices seem really competitive.

jellybaby said:

QVC dont have the items on shelves and pick them individually for each order.

When the items are in the warehouses, they will already be boxed up as individual items (and are probably sent to QVC warehouses from the supplier ready packaged- so they probably dont even have that cost either), and then the label with name etc is just put on and then it is posted. That is why they cannot bundle 2 or 3 items together.

The only way around this would be to create parcels of 2 or 3 together so they could be sent as 2s or 3s....

I do think they overcharge for postage, but I can see why they cant change the way they send packages out if you multi-order

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I think this is fair enough for larger items, but surely, if a customer were to buy two or three items of jewellery, it is not untinkable to put the three ring boxes in a larger envelope and mail everything together. Similarly, I was tempted yesterday by some flower shaped stickers in the craft hours. I liked two colour options, but why should I spend almost £6 to have something so small and light be sent to me in two different mailbags? When the effective cost of sending both together would be below the £1 mark????

Don't get me started on the postage charges either. It's the deciding factor as to whether I order from them now. Strangely enough I don't order nearly as much as I used to. The waste of packaging really gets on my nerves, especially on small items such as jewellery, they could easily all be chucked in one jiffy bag rather than seperate ones and a p&p discount could easily be given. Heck if people (myself included) selling on Ebay can do it, then why can't a company as large as QVC get their act together?

I have been tempted by loads of crafting goodies recently, but the moment I looked at the p&p and then realised I would have to pay seperate p&p on every item I thought again. So QVC have lost quite a few sales from me recently, unless it has been something I need or something that is really a bargain then I have looked elsewhere.

I totally agree with everything said here - their postage charges are abominable for the items they send out. There also seems to be no rhyme or reason to them, you'll pay £4.95 for a lipstick or £3.95 on something much heavier. I paid almost a fiver on a horrid Nina Leonard top that arrived looking like a limp dishrag, needless to say I sent it straight back, 1st class at a cost of £1.60??!?

P+P has to be part of the deciding factor for me when making purchases. I always do a search for what I want online and compare prices (cost of item plus P+P) before buying.
Sometimes it's a bargain and other times it's not.

I feel sorry for those who can't shop online and have to pay their exorbitant P+P costs - but then again someone has to pay for the costs of producing and broadcasting the shows.

Jan