[imagesource: Leo za1 / Wikimedia Commons]

How do you make sure something you send via the South African Post Office (SAPO) arrives in time for Christmas?

Well, there’s no guarantee it’s ever going to arrive but you should probably send it a good three to four months beforehand if you insist.

In perhaps the most depressingly humourous SAPO experiment in recent memory, a 2018 speed test showed that our SOE was actually slower than the Cursus Publicus, the state-run courier and transportation service of the Roman Empire 2 000 years ago.

Everyone deserves a second chance, right? MyBroadband reckons so and the site has just published its 2022 Post Office parcel delivery test.

One parcel, sent from Gqeberha to Centurion in Pretoria sums up the mess:

 …eight months (238 calendar days, 163 working days), and it finally arrived — back at the sender’s address.

The parcel contained a GPS tracker and was sent with the Post Office’s ordinary mail service.

The parcel went from Gqeberha to Jozi, and then from Jozi to Durban, and then back to Gqeberha. You don’t need a lesson in geography to tell you that Jozi isn’t all that far from Centurion and a trip down the coast and back home was wholly unnecessary.

A lesson in efficiency might be needed.

In total, MyBroadband sent four parcels – two via ordinary mail and two via registered mail.

Image: MyBroadband

Perhaps the biggest shock is that something actually arrived after six days.

For those who order goodies from overseas, the inefficiency of SAPO also brings with it numerous headaches.

Will the goods that I have paid for actually clear customs, which is suffering from a monster backlog, and will I suffer a heart attack before this point?

I don’t have the answer to those questions, but Postbox Courier provides an easy solution.

They offer a service that gives you a shipping address in the US, UK, Australia, and Hong Kong. So, if you’re buying products that don’t ship to South Africa, then you can use your overseas address and have it delivered there.

As soon as your goodies arrive, Postbox Courier will send them to your door in SA.

They handle your parcel every step of the way – meaning it doesn’t get “stuck” at customs on our side, and they also make sure you don’t get stung with some absurd customs duty payment that you can’t query.

Setting up an account with Postbox Courier is free, and there are no subscription fees because it’s a simple Pay As You Go service.

Or, you know, feel free to trust that our post office is going to suddenly step up to the plate.

[source:mybb]