Issue #0623/2 - Charges for delivery vary from supplier to supplier, of course, but what about delivery times?
For some reason, Canon cannot guarantee delivery of many products in less than 10 days because the items are not in stock at Canon’s logistics partner. Canon further does not guarantee that the product will be in stock in its own warehouse, meaning that a delay of more than 10 days may be suffered.
By contrast, the items checked in the preparation of this article were available from leading online stores on a next-day basis at a discount of around 16%. Bearing in mind that delivery on a set of 6 inks would cost £4.50 from the independent online store and £3.49 from Canon, the actual discount is around 12% - and delivery would be next day whereas Canon is quoting 10 days for five of the six products and 3 days for the final product.
| Shipping costs start at: | |
|---|---|
| Canon | £3.49 |
| Epson |
free delivery (~3 days) £4.99 next day |
| HP | £4.99 |
| Lexmark | Free delivery |
| Xerox | £4.99 |
| Online store 1 | £3.00 |
| Online store 2 | £4.99 |
| Online store 3 | £8.95 |
Delivery charges from typical online stores range from around £3 to approaching £10. To pay as much as £10 would be excessive – the average is around the £4 to £5 mark. On this basis, most of the manufacturers are charging delivery fees that are in line with the average independent online stores.
Epson and Lexmark both go as far as to offer free delivery but if urgent next day delivery is require, Epson in particular offers an express service at £4.99.
None of the manufacturers apart from Canon appeared to have any specific, or anticipated, stocking difficulties.
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