'Shop' sending 2 single packs of strings via DPD...Why?

guitarblaster

OP - could you please send this company an email and ask if the person who made the decision to send the strings via DPD had a degree or not? 

pintspiller

Living in Northern Ireland, I pay attention to delivery charges, as some companies deal solely with couriers, which generally means an extra £10 for delivery here. I was stung too many times in the past buying PC components.

Sporky

Also ask them if a coin has been flipped six times and came up heads every time, whether it's more likely to come up heads the next.

Then we can judge whether they have common sense, or whether they're actually intelligent.

ICBM

Sporky said:

Also ask them if a coin has been flipped six times and came up heads every time, whether it's more likely to come up heads the next.

Then we can judge whether they have common sense, or whether they're actually intelligent.

How many heads in a row do you have to get before you start to suspect the coin has two heads?

bingefeller

pintspiller said:

Living in Northern Ireland, I pay attention to delivery charges, as some companies deal solely with couriers, which generally means an extra £10 for delivery here. I was stung too many times in the past buying PC components.

We get ripped off for delivery charges sometimes.  I remember GuitarGuitar charging £20 to send me a pedal a lot of years back - needless to say I didn't order from them.  

BRISTOL86

WezV said:

Don't DPD let you redirect to a local shop if you are not in?

 I recall being pretty impressed by the options last time they had a parcel for me

Yep, all sorts. Can schedule alternate days via text and even live track your delivery, and they give you a pretty specific time slot which has been 100% reliable for me. 

Everytime I have something delivered by DPD I know it'll be good, unlike the likes of Yodel and Hermes who seem to take the 'let's see how badly we can break it' approach!

edenfield99

I've got a degree (electronics) and 20+ years of experience of working in engineering and I send stuff every day by courier that could go by post, why? Because it's insured and it's tracked and it saves people complaining we didn't even bother shipping it, or our deliveries are rubbish or even the customer getting a free item because we can't prove it arrived and they fraudulently claim it never turned up. Sometimes it would be better because of the price of the items to ship by Royal Mail but I couldn't do that even if I, despite of my degree, wanted to as we have an automated system and the order goes to the uneducated rabble in stores (many with 30 years hands on experience) who just put them in a box and stick a UPS label on it!

Sporky

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

Also ask them if a coin has been flipped six times and came up heads every time, whether it's more likely to come up heads the next.

Then we can judge whether they have common sense, or whether they're actually intelligent.

How many heads in a row do you have to get before you start to suspect the coin has two heads?

And here we have our first intelligent response.

step_hent

Just wondering, but for small items can't people just get things delivered to work? I understand the need to wait at home for a washing machine delivery, but I just get small stuff like strings delivered to work and carry them home.

Doesn't work if you don't work in one place all/most of the time, I guess. Maybe I've answered my own question...

For what it's worth, I have a degree. I have no idea if this post reflects negatively or positively on this with the same affliction.

Jez6345789

Or if you want to moan about a sensible choice for you and the seller so you just don't stick them in your pocket and say you never got them. You could always do it the old fashioned way and walk into a store talk to the nice people and patronise a guitar shop. 

Then you have no problem.

it's  such a first world problem these days as people want to moan even if they are getting something delivered to their door. Once only the perogotive of Kings and Noblemen. 

Oh make sure you send it with an illiterate peasant don't want anything to do with those smart cleric types coming up with a better way.

lol

crunchman

Jez6345789 said:

Or if you want to moan about a sensible choice for you and the seller so you just don't stick them in your pocket and say you never got them. You could always do it the old fashioned way and walk into a store talk to the nice people and patronise a guitar shop. 

Aren't any guitar shops near here anymore.  Chandlers and ABC (if you can call that a guitar shop) in Kew have both closed in recent months.  Peter Cooks and the Acton Digital Village went a while back.  I don't have a local shop to frequent anymore.

Dave_Mc

This annoys me as well, for two reasons:

Firstly, the reason you said- it's a lot handier if stuff can come by Royal Mail. Even if someone's at home, Royal Mail normally comes in the morning, whereas with couriers you often have to wait in all day.

Secondly, living in Northern Ireland, Royal Mail charges the same for delivery to here, and most courier companies don't. It seems to be getting a little better- some guitar shops now charge the same to NI as the rest of the UK even if they use a courier, but a lot still don't.

For something like an expensive amp or guitar where it's (arguably) safer with a trusted courier, that's maybe ok and I'll grudgingly put up with it, but it's very annoying if it's something like a pedal.

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

Also ask them if a coin has been flipped six times and came up heads every time, whether it's more likely to come up heads the next.

Then we can judge whether they have common sense, or whether they're actually intelligent.

How many heads in a row do you have to get before you start to suspect the coin has two heads?

Ah the old* ludic fallacy.

Unfortunately you have to use your own judgment to determine exactly when you should stick to statistics and when you abandon them...


* well ok, it's actually pretty new I think. At least fairly newly-coined.

bingefeller said:

pintspiller said:

Living in Northern Ireland, I pay attention to delivery charges, as some companies deal solely with couriers, which generally means an extra £10 for delivery here. I was stung too many times in the past buying PC components.

We get ripped off for delivery charges sometimes.  I remember GuitarGuitar charging £20 to send me a pedal a lot of years back - needless to say I didn't order from them.  

Ditto. That time they had the SL drive on a deal, I entered all my details etc. and then at the last minute it said it was going to be £20 postage.

The amount I was saving was £20.

I didn't bother either.

They contacted me by email the next day asking why I didn't put it through (I guess they wanted to make sure I just didn't have problems working their website). I told them (politely). I didn't hear anything back.

I mean, I'd have just let it go and wasn't going to say anything but they asked.

Sporky

Dave_Mc said:

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

Also ask them if a coin has been flipped six times and came up heads every time, whether it's more likely to come up heads the next.

Then we can judge whether they have common sense, or whether they're actually intelligent.

How many heads in a row do you have to get before you start to suspect the coin has two heads?

Ah the old* ludic fallacy.

Unfortunately you have to use your own judgment to determine exactly when you should stick to statistics and when you abandon them...

Hence six times.

(but another excellent answer)

Nikko

Unfortunately, my local store, from whom I purchased an Amp at the weekend, didn't have the strings I wanted otherwise I would have got them at the same time.

crunchman

Dave_Mc said:

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

Also ask them if a coin has been flipped six times and came up heads every time, whether it's more likely to come up heads the next.

Then we can judge whether they have common sense, or whether they're actually intelligent.

How many heads in a row do you have to get before you start to suspect the coin has two heads?

Ah the old* ludic fallacy.

Unfortunately you have to use your own judgment to determine exactly when you should stick to statistics and when you abandon them...

You don't have to abandon statistics.  There are statistical methods that are used to look for correlations etc.  You would normally work out the probability of something.  There would be a threshold defined for that probability that would be regarded as too small a chance of happening randomly.

6 heads in a row would have a 1 in 64 chance of happening randomly.  It's likely it's rigged but there is a small chance that it's random.  10 in a row would be 1 in 1024 and you would definitely be asking for a new coin. 15 in a row would be 1 in 32768.  That's an incredibly small chance and would be regarded as rigged.

It gets more difficult if it's something like 6 out of 10.  6 out of 10 is well within the realms of random chance.  60 out of 100 is a lot less likely.  600 out of 1000 is at the point where the coin is rigged.  Again you can work out the probability of this.

Sassafras

Does this mean we should no longer buy stuff from people with degrees and diplomas?

Sporky

You probably shouldn't buy coins from them.

A5D5E5

crunchman said:

Dave_Mc said:

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

Also ask them if a coin has been flipped six times and came up heads every time, whether it's more likely to come up heads the next.

Then we can judge whether they have common sense, or whether they're actually intelligent.

How many heads in a row do you have to get before you start to suspect the coin has two heads?

Ah the old* ludic fallacy.

Unfortunately you have to use your own judgment to determine exactly when you should stick to statistics and when you abandon them...

You don't have to abandon statistics.  There are statistical methods that are used to look for correlations etc.  You would normally work out the probability of something.  There would be a threshold defined for that probability that would be regarded as too small a chance of happening randomly.

6 heads in a row would have a 1 in 64 chance of happening randomly.  It's likely it's rigged but there is a small chance that it's random.  10 in a row would be 1 in 1024 and you would definitely be asking for a new coin. 15 in a row would be 1 in 32768.  That's an incredibly small chance and would be regarded as rigged.

It gets more difficult if it's something like 6 out of 10.  6 out of 10 is well within the realms of random chance.  60 out of 100 is a lot less likely.  600 out of 1000 is at the point where the coin is rigged.  Again you can work out the probability of this.

A physicist at CERN would be looking for 5 standard deviations from the mean.  

Dave_Mc

^ I'd have thought everyone at CERN was kind of a deviation from the mean...

(Sorry )

Sporky said:

Hence six times.

(but another excellent answer)

I just realised I made an awful (unintentional) pun up there about "coining" the term "ludic fallacy" when we were talking about coin tosses...

crunchman said:

Dave_Mc said:

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

Also ask them if a coin has been flipped six times and came up heads every time, whether it's more likely to come up heads the next.

Then we can judge whether they have common sense, or whether they're actually intelligent.

How many heads in a row do you have to get before you start to suspect the coin has two heads?

Ah the old* ludic fallacy.

Unfortunately you have to use your own judgment to determine exactly when you should stick to statistics and when you abandon them...

You don't have to abandon statistics.  There are statistical methods that are used to look for correlations etc.  You would normally work out the probability of something.  There would be a threshold defined for that probability that would be regarded as too small a chance of happening randomly.

6 heads in a row would have a 1 in 64 chance of happening randomly.  It's likely it's rigged but there is a small chance that it's random.  10 in a row would be 1 in 1024 and you would definitely be asking for a new coin. 15 in a row would be 1 in 32768.  That's an incredibly small chance and would be regarded as rigged.

It gets more difficult if it's something like 6 out of 10.  6 out of 10 is well within the realms of random chance.  60 out of 100 is a lot less likely.  600 out of 1000 is at the point where the coin is rigged.  Again you can work out the probability of this.

Absolutely. I'm (reasonably) well up on (basic) statistics/probability. I just used the term "abandon" to save time. Obviously you could also use statistics (as you said) to work out where it's starting to get a bit iffy.

Sporky

I thought the coin pun was deliberate. Not so impressed now.