Hornby - Wasteful Amount of Packaging from Online Orders?

[RJennings]

Just curious to others thoughts / feelings on this subject …

 

Today I received my delivery of Mk4s / DVTs from Hornby which given Hornbys ordering system resulted in 14 separate pre-orders being made for this delivery alone. I am somewhat surprised to see each individual coach arrive in its own individual cardboard box (with postage paid) on each where appropriate (The 3x DVTs being free delivery as above the £50 requirement). Now I am all for wanting to cut down on waste and help the environment etc but is it me or is the sheer amount of packaging just plain wasteful rather than simply a couple of slightly larger boxes also factoring in the excessive quantities of bubble wrap used as well? I’d see the point if each coach arrived in weekly segments but for one delivery in one go its a different matter altogether.

 

This also equated to a postage charge of £43.45 for this delivery (11x £3.95) which seems steep given each of the smaller boxes could fit at least 2 coaches (if not 3) allowing for bubble wrap too.

 

I’ve added photos below (sorry if not rotated properly) to demonstrate but certainly all said and done given me a good laugh but felt it needing sharing as I’m sure it’s not just me thinking it’s wasteful in this day and age when considering this was a single delivery made at the same time …

[LaGrange]

They look intact, nothing is bashed or broken.

 

I'd be complaining if items were damaged, but not here

[tetsudofan]

Snap, just the same here. One coach arrived yesterday followed by four more today loosely packed in four more boxes of differing sizes although all items were ordered at the same time.

 

In the process of opening each of the boxes to ensure that all is ok. 

[spamcan61]

Presumably they have a clunky order fulfilment system which can't cope with multiple items on multiple orders for the same recipient.

[Phil Parker]

20 minutes ago, RJennings said:

Today I received my delivery of Mk4s / DVTs from Hornby which given Hornbys ordering system resulted in 14 separate pre-orders being made for this delivery alone.

 

The problem isn't the packing, it's that there were 14 different orders, so each coach was treated as a seperate item. There's a reaonable chance that no one person packed all the orders either, so there's no way they could be combined there.

 

I've looked at a lot of retailers fulfilment set-ups and they all use a selection of standard sized boxes - it's the only way to work efficiently. You faff around creating packing for each indiviual item, stuff needs to go out of the door quicly, and with as little staff time expended as possible. That means some items will end up over-packed of course (single decoder in a box for example) but that's better than under packed and broken. There would be far more moaning if that happens!

 

As for the OP, well the boxes can be recycled and the bubble wrap used again. I suspect that like many people, I have a collection of "useful" boxes in the garage, some of which actually do prove to be useful!

[spamcan61]

4 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

As for the OP, well the boxes can be recycled and the bubble wrap used again. I suspect that like many people, I have a collection of "useful" boxes in the garage, some of which actually do prove to be useful!

Oh absolutely, along with a bin liner full of 'useful' used pieces of bubblewrap... I don't keep every scrap.

[The Stationmaster]

The only problem with bubble wrap is that once you have completed your own little mountain of it everything else goes in the rubbish bin and off to landfill.  Amazon seem to be increasingly using paper - albeit considerable quantities of it - instead of bubble wrap and it you don't keep it for further use it can go in the recycling bin.

 

The ordering system does seem to be rather odd if it doesn't cater for multiple items on a single order - which no doubt also impacts (adversely) on the postal cost.  but the critical thing is taht the items arrived in good order and undamaged.  

 

(BTW I wonder why the Americanism, (usage and spelling)  'fulfillment' seems to be taking over from the good old plain English word 'despatch' when we talk about a dept or company dealing with the picking, packing, and despatch of goods bought by mail order or online?) 

[BroadLeaves]

Given the complaints they had about how poorly some of the "Hush Hush" locomotives were packed, they may have now gone too far the other way.

I too collect all my larger bits of bubble wrap in a few bin bags and then offer it as a job lot on FreeCycle. It's always snapped up, I assume by someone running a small mail-order business from home.
 

[E100]

So I emailed about my mk3 sleepers and they were able to refund the postage charges and put them in one box but obviously it shouldn't be like that and be more customer/environmentally friendly.

[Hilux5972]

You do 14 seperate preorders then you’ll get 14 seperate orders which means 14 seperate delivery orders. Unfortunately Hornbys system doesn’t cater for multiple preorders in one go. 

[amwells]

Isn’t the point here though that someone can place one order, with multiple items, and then Hornby’s system creates an order per item from that single order. It is then incapable of re-combining them when the items all get delivered at once. It’s so frustrating, environmentally poor (driving half empty boxes around), cost inefficient (either to the customer if you have to pay postage on every item, or to Hornby if they are paying their fulfilment company for every parcel and then refunding the cost to the customer). 
 

it’s this sort of inefficiency that can only add to their profitability issues, even if they do get more margin from direct sales. Either that or every customer is prepared to wear the cost of their inefficient processes!

[Damo666]

Agree on the environmental issue.

 

Doesn't make sense to be transporting lots of air across the UK. This waste has to be paid for some way, wither lower profit for the manufacturer or increased item cost.

 

We need to do better in the current climate (pun intended).

[1andrew1]

FYI From page 3 of the 2022 Annual Report and Accounts. Don't know if this relates to online orders too?

"Further automation took place at the warehouse with the introduction of robots to improve our efficiency in fulfilling orders and in recent months we have increased our operating hours in order to despatch products more quickly." 

https://www.Hornby.plc.uk/annual-reports/

Edited August 18, 2022 by 1andrew1

[Hilux5972]

6 hours ago, amwells said:

Isn’t the point here though that someone can place one order, with multiple items, and then Hornby’s system creates an order per item from that single order. It is then incapable of re-combining them when the items all get delivered at once. 

As far as I am aware, it isn’t possible to add preorder items to a cart and do a bulk preorder. 

[amwells]

2 hours ago, Hilux5972 said:

As far as I am aware, it isn’t possible to add preorder items to a cart and do a bulk preorder. 

I’ve done it, but then got individual order numbers back for every item. So it is possible to add multiple preorder items to the cart - Hornby just then don’t recognise it as a single order. 

[PeterStiles]

1 hour ago, amwells said:

Hornby just then don’t recognise it as a single order. 

I think they literally can't work out what they'd do if the goods turned up on different dates and how they'd "part fulfil" an order :(

 

In the past I've rung them up after receiving multiple boxes like this and asked the question on everyone's lips: "Did I get charged multiple postage costs for this?" (Because the whole order was obviously over their Free Postage limit even if the individual items weren't).. The answer has varied but when it's been "oh, yes you have," they've followed it with a "we'll refund the postage costs to you."

 

[spamcan61]

Given they seem so keen on making life difficult for 'their' retailers I'd say this is a a case of "you made your bed, now lie in it" ;-)

[Roddy Angus]

Whilst splitting any orders into individual components is Hornby's solution, other manufacturers warn that if you have more than one type of model in a pre-order then the whole order will be delayed until the latest model is available.  They normally recommend doing a separate pre-order for each model type being ordered.  I am currently waiting for some models from a manufacturer where although the models are all of the same basic "type" 2 sub-types have already been delivered but the third is still awaited.  The manufacturer does say that they will split the order, if requested, but I am happy to wait.  It would appear that Hornby are trying to address the same issue but are doing it automatically on behalf of the customer.

 

I have also received multiple packages from the same manufacturer, on the same day, for models ordered together.  Probably easier for packer to simply deal with one size of parcel.  With delivery deals, the postage is probably not that much extra over a single large parcel.  I think at least one delivery organisation allows multiple parcels to be charged as though they were one parcel of the overall weight.

 

However charging multiple postage should be looked at.

 

Regards

 

Roddy

[ruggedpeak]

Looks like Hornby are following the Amazon method of packaging. More efficient in terms of logistics but less in terms of material usage.

 

At least the boxes are roughly the right size for the product, Amazon will send out boxes several orders of magnitude larger than the product inside with a corresponding amount of filling. If you've seen their warehouse operations on TV it is very fast and the paper filling the box is fired in from a machine, a bit like squirty foam! 

[Guest]

Well to be fair, at least they've made a proper job at packaging here, which than what can said beforehand, where according to others there was little or no protection for the product while in transit. Having an excessive amount is still better than none 🤷‍♀️

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Guest

[D9020 Nimbus]

The ones that annoy me are the eBay sellers who cover the whole box with parcel tape making it next to impossible to recycle. And also making it difficult to know how one can safely open the box concerned…

[Standards_in_OO]

As someone who regularly sells my older stock on eBay I usually reuse packaging I receive from new models so am welcome to keeping as much of it as possible. although I do agree that is a little on the excessive side. 

[6990WitherslackHall]

I've not ordered anything from Hornby yet but I'm planning to do so. but upon reading this thread, don't think I'll bother. 

[greatcoleswoodhalt]

2 hours ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

I've not ordered anything from Hornby yet but I'm planning to do so. but upon reading this thread, don't think I'll bother. 

 

...purely because of their P&P?

[Helmdon]

On 18/08/2022 at 17:25, The Stationmaster said:

 

 

(BTW I wonder why the Americanism, (usage and spelling)  'fulfillment' seems to be taking over from the good old plain English word 'despatch' when we talk about a dept or company dealing with the picking, packing, and despatch of goods bought by mail order or online?) 

That's dead easy - it's American software and that's what it calls it.

 

For hundreds of years the Royal Navy appointed officers to ships, and drafted ratings. For the past nearly 20 years, everyone has had an 'assignment' because that's what the US software the forces bought calls it...