Friday 24 June 2011

How Much?

What's the point of having a blog, if you can't have a rant now and again.

I'm looking to plan an quick overnighter, and as such I want some food for the evening. As its only one night I can't be bother to get the dehydrator out and do one meal.

So I looked on the web for freeze-dried/dehydrated meals; now these can be expensive if you go for something like Real Tummat but one's like Mountain House/Be-Well are fairly cheap at around £4-5 mark.

But the problem I have buying those online is with the companies supplying them; as they seem to want to rip you off when ordering.

So far I have tried two sites and both have the meal I want at £3.95 but one wants to charge £5.95 delivery charge and the other £3.96.

The 5.95 one; only seem to offer a courier service and have no other options for delivery, I did try to contact them through their contacts page but this needed the following:- Username, Address, Telephone number, and department, these were the items that were required. So I have to register to contact them; No Thanks!

The Second site's charge of £3.96 (where do you get .96 from?) is for orders less than £100; so in theory ordering £99 worth of meals, which is roughly 20-25 packages is the same as ordering one.

I can't see how this is so; the bulk and weight is more than a single item and the cost surely must be more.

I guess I have the option to phone them and ask if they could send a single meal out by 1st class post but I have always been of the opinion that if you can't see it on show; then they don't do it. If they do 1st class postage surely it should be on the the website, without have to be asked.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not one of these people who think all postage on items should be free but I do feel that these postal charges are a rip off; last year I ordered a rucsac online and the postage for that was £3.00 and that's a lot more bulky than a dried meal.

Now I'm of to Waitrose and firing up the dehydrator.

6 comments:

  1. As you know, George, this subject is a source of much angst for me too.

    I think that the main problem is that these companies get so used to shipping big orders using couriers that they either feel obliged to use them for everything, or they completely forget that there are at least two reasonably-competent snail-mail services out there which are ideally-suited to the delivery of small orders and items.

    Maybe it's time to wake them up and make them smell the coffee that they ordered in bulk not so long ago.

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  2. I think it's worth phoning, I use a couple of companies to supply my work equipment which can be heavy and bulky and their websites show just one postage option. However if I just want a couple of spare parts they'll whack 'em in a jiffy bag and stick them out first class.

    You don't get if you don't ask (sadly!)

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  3. did you try www.expeditionfoods.com. Always found them reasonable but I buy several days' worth of grub at a time from them.

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  4. Even they want £3.50 for a single £4.99 meal.

    Seems as all these companies are only interested in bulk purchasers :-(

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  5. Hi, it is a pity I did not know you wanted only one meal, if I had known I would have popped one in the post for you. Usually I have several spare ones. Next time give me a shout. Enjoy your night away.

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  6. Thanks for the kind offer, Dawn

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