Parcel force UK to France.

[Chancer]

I have a few questions regarding an order I placed from a UK supplier for a french friend, its a christmas present for her son.

It is being delivered by parcel force, the tracking shows it going to a French parcel service on the 8th and the current status is lost [:-))] i assume that just means that they can no longer track it.

My questions:

Do La Poste deliver items sent from Parcelforce UK? - I hope so as I wont hear the delivery from where I am working and with La Poste I can pick it up later from the local bureau.

How long does a parcel usually take once it on French soil? Assuming it is going to arrive that is!

As ever, thank you.

[Quillan]

For us they usually turn up by 'white van man'. We always have our stuff insured, it normally does not cost that much extra. If you have done the same then I suggest you get in touch with the people you bought the item from, explain the situation, and they will be able to view the Parcel Force website tracking area and hopefully confirm the situation. If it is indeed lost you normally get a refund, well we did once, but there is normally a time limit both ways i.e. you have to wait so many days for it to arrive before you can make a claim and then you have so many days in which to make the claim that it has not turned up. There could of course be weather conditions effecting the delivery as was the case with a carpet we recently bought from the UK. Sorry I can't be of any further help, good luck.

[Chancer]

Thanks for the reply Q.

I have tracked the parcel myself and I think lost just means there is no more traceability after it his French soil, it showed lost the first time I looked and it had been in France less than 24 hours so I dont think in this case and at this time lost means lost.

Shame about white van man, if he leaves his ticket I will have a 40 minute drive to Amiens to collect it, no doubt they will want a lette from my mum wih an appoved translation [;-)]

In all my years here I have only ever seen one delivery van "Abeille Rush" with the same driver from Amiens, now the population of the town next to me and surrounding communes is about 150000 and yet I probably only see this guy 2 or 3 times a year.

In my close in the UK I look out on a handfull of houses yet there are delivery vans in and out throughout the day be they Tesco, Waitrose, Parcel force or the myriad of parcel delivery companies.

Having seen the prices for collections and deliveries in France coupled with peoples reluctance to order from the internet and the almost total lack of mail order companies compared to even 20 years ago in the UK I suppose we do only need one man van white [:)]

[mint]

Chance, you need to find out if it is being delivered by Chronopost.  If it is, you might as well gird your loins and prepare yourself  for the battle ahead!  (no, I don't know what gird means either but that's what they normally say, don't they?)

[cooperlola]

[quote user="sweet 17"]  (no, I don't know what gird means either but that's what they normally say, don't they?)[/quote]You just knew what would come next, didn't you?:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gird+loins

[mint]

Chance will just have to do a bit more loin-girding, won't he, Coops?

[idun]

Don't get me started on this as to how both countries can not do 'joined up' deliveries. They say that they offer a service and then, well let me say that the people in the UK were very smug about them doing their bit, and that the french were holding things up.

I didn't just pay for half a service though, I paid for a full door to door job, with tracking and that is what I expect.

Good luck, thing tend to turn up eventually.

[Loirette]

Hi Chancer

We recently had a parcel sent via parcel force. There were problems with our delvery although we did eventually receive it a week later!  It came chronopost and I was able to follow the delivery via La Poste site.  If you haven't already done so, on the internet, go into laposte.fr/particular and type in your ref.  Eventually you will come to a page where you will be able to see full details of when it arrived in France, which sorting office it went to and where it is at present.  I had to phone them as I was able to see they were claiming they had a problem with our address. They then delivered it to us the next day.  Good Luck!

[Chancer]

Thank you all for your concern, it appears that my luckremains with me as it arrived this morning.

It was delivered it appears by Global Logistics Services who did the imminently sensible thing of leaving it at the neighbouring brasserie.

Looking at the tracking details it took 2 days from leaving the supplier to get to France and a further 5 days including a weekend to get to me, given the relative size of the countries, number of distribution hubs, the Christmas surge etc, it seems to have suffered no delays in either country.

Interesting about the Chronopost tracking, did you know it was with them or just guess and tried using the Parcelforce tracking number?

For those of you who have sufferred at the hands of Chronopost there may be some good news, the Pacelforce Europriority label has GLS network partner printed on it, pehaps they have dumped Chronopost?

[Chancer]

I just tried my tracking number on the GLS website and it had all the details.

It appears to have been recieved at the Carvin hub and immediately sent to the Poulin hub where I would say it was indeed lost as it took 5 days to get there and the UK site now shows it as in progress, no longer lost.

It got to Poulainville at 6am this morning and was sent out at 8 am and got to here somewhere around 10am I guess.

So it would appear that the GLS system works extremely well when it works and with great traceability or it can stall, perhaps the tracking history should have an icon for gallic shrug, far more meaningfull than lost [:D]

I am still a happy bunny but it shows just how fast a parcel could arrive in France.

[Quillan]

Our carpet came from and Amazon 'partner' via GLS and the 'white van man' and it didn't take long. We thought we might have to wait because of snow etc in the UK but it came on the day they said it would. I wonder if it's to do with size and possibly where it comes from (Amazon direct or from a 3rd party 'partner')? I have more trouble getting stuff from the French Ebay site, some people seem to think you can wait a week before sending it. [:@]