Ordering a single part from CousinsUK

[HansPeter]

Since this year, it looks like CousinsUK doesn't have the Royal Mail postage option anymore for small / single parts.

Now I'm paying at least 18 pounds to UPS.

I have to find other sources when ordering a single watch crystal , lubrication or movement sparepart.

Do you have the same problem, or is it just me? Any alternatives? I live in The Netherlands....

[HectorLooi]

It's not just you. I just checked and they only have UPS and TNT delivery options. The cost the ship anything to Singapore is £37 by UPS and £160 by TNT. 

I think it's due to the recent postal strikes. My last order, last year, took almost 2 months to arrive. Usually it only takes 6 days. 

[HaxSmash]

https://www.cousinsuk.com/page/news
 

Royal mail is unable to send out international packages at the moment due to what appears to be their own IT incompetence. Until that is resolved, it seems third party shippers are the only option to get packages out of the UK.  
 

Looking at the Royal Mail site, it seems they are finally starting to move their backlog, but still not taking new international shipments   

[thor447]

I saw that as well.  I was wanting to purchase a few tubes of replacement o-rings for sizes I commonly use.  Cousins is the only place I found where I can purchase them in more than single quantities, and generally their cost for 10 is cheaper than buying a single one on eBay.  I had about $20 worth of items in my cart, only to find that Royal Mail was unavailable and UPS would've cost me nearly $50 to ship to the US.  I didn't have an alternative place to buy the gaskets I needed, so I figured I'd try to make the shipping cost worth it and added a few additional items to my cart for things I've been putting off buying.  

I've been wanting to get a better demagnetizer, so I added an Elma Antimag to the cart, as well as a few other items.  My order went from $20 before shipping to $350 before shipping.  It seems, at least in my case, that the Royal Mail issue worked out in their favor, haha.

Edited January 23, 2023 by thor447

[gbyleveldt]

Haha, welcome to the world of those less fortunate that lives in the sticks of the world. Royal mail was never a reliable option for me due to our local joke of a postal service. So I generally build up a cart over a few weeks till it makes sense to ship items here using UPS.

[thor447]

9 minutes ago, gbyleveldt said:

Haha, welcome to the world of those less fortunate that lives in the sticks of the world. Royal mail was never a reliable option for me due to our local joke of a postal service. So I generally build up a cart over a few weeks till it makes sense to ship items here using UPS.

I'm thinking that will be what I need to do moving forward.  I find it ironic that if I use Royal Mail, when it finally reaches the US, it can be with customs for multiple days, if not a couple of weeks.  I've even had one that ended up getting shipped back to the UK because it did not clear customs.  It then shipped back to the US, stayed with customs for another week, and was then finally released.

I've used the UPS option twice in the past for some bigger purchases, and it arrived at the UPS hub, and was through customs in less than 24 hours both times.  

I think your method makes sense, and I'll probably start buying larger quantities of supplies less often to justify the UPS shipping costs and get quicker customs processing times.

Edited January 23, 2023 by thor447

[Marc]

Apparently Royal Mail was the victim of a ransom ware cyber attack which knocked out their systems for international mail, allegedly by Russian based criminal gangs. I don't know what the current status of the situation is but I doubt that the current ongoing industrial action is helping.