poste-it

Having just experienced my first parcel experience at the French post, I must say that those guys really need to wake up to the insane amount of revenue they're passing up in providing absolutely minimal resources to send objects in the mail.

I want to send a box of caramels to my Dad for his birthday (fathers are ridiculously difficult to buy for, besides, I know he likes caramels, they were good caramels ok? Aaaah, forget it). All they can propose for me is a box at 16 euros (which puts it at roughly twice the price of the actual gift).
'Or you can wrap it yourself and send it for 8 euros'
'You don't have any padded bags for sale? Any smaller boxes'
'No, all we have is that box' (a 2kg bog I might add, my caramels weigh in at 300g)

So I go to the newsagent, give THEM my money, and return to the post office, all the while thinking about the enormous difference in merchandise available at an Australian post office as compared to a French one. In Australia, any object you could want to send - cd's, posters, books, bottles - in the post has a corresponding package, and they come in a bunch of shapes and sizes and choice of speediness. It just surprises me to see the postal service not capitalising on something that could make them a profit. It makes no difference to me, I know now to prepack my parcels before going to the post office. But whack a la poste logo and a few centimes profit on a bunch of different sized boxes and padded envelopes, and people are likely to do more of their wrapping and packing on site. Aaaand maybe then they could put those profits towards making it cost a little less to send a parcel :-/