Local couriers' services cheap but reliable<\/p>\n
Joseph Kirschke
\nContributor
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
In 1998, Hubert Fournier was working as an organizer for a
\npainting exhibition in Jakarta. Using a single courier, he sent
\nout 1,000 invitations to people -- expats and locals alike --
\nacross the city.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, he recalled, a third of them arrived late.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Fournier, now a business consultant for
\ninternational companies that want to settle in Jakarta, admits he
\nwas at fault in expecting too much in too little time.<\/p>\n
\"It was my fault really,\" said Fournier, a French national who
\nhas lived in Jakarta for eight years and also works as an
\neducation consultant for European schools.<\/p>\n
Like many expats in Indonesia who rely on courier services --
\nas opposed to the sometimes unreliable postal network here --
\nFournier said he was more than happy with the services available
\nand was consistently amazed at the quality he got for a small
\ncost.<\/p>\n
It was easy to get the ball rolling, Fournier said. All he
\nneeded to do was to have his secretary pick up the phone and make
\n\"five or six\" calls.<\/p>\n
About the companies' responses, \"they are very aggressive
\n(competitors) by phone and by fax,\" he said. \"There are many
\noperators to choose from.\"<\/p>\n
There is, however, one prominent disadvantage Fournier sees --
\nthe need to switch to different couriers in the event their
\nquality decreases due to a change of drivers.<\/p>\n
\"One company can be very good for a while,\" he said, \"but
\nafter six months, the quality can go down.\"<\/p>\n
Still, he added, with costs as low as Rp 1,500 (about US$
\n0.20) per piece of mail, \"you cannot be too negative since the
\ncosts are very cheap -- sometimes too cheap.\"<\/p>\n
Having formerly worked with couriers in Milan, Italy, Fournier
\nsays there is no room for comparison with the excellent work of
\nIndonesian drivers. \"It's totally incomparable -- it's
\nmarvelous,\" he said. \"Sometimes I can't believe the costs
\ncompared to what some of these couriers do.\"<\/p>\n
Australian Ala Sulistyono recommends expatriates do a little
\nbit of investigation on their own if they want to send a package
\nsomewhere overseas -- or within Indonesia, for that matter -- to
\nsee what the most reasonable rates are.<\/p>\n
\"I would say shop around -- because the prices are so varied,\"
\nsaid Sulistyono, who has lived in Jakarta for 21 years, and is
\nmarried to an Indonesian.<\/p>\n
Sulistyono wound up using TNT courier services when her 17-
\nyear-old daughter Alexia was taking an Australian distance
\nlearning program from Melbourne's Distance Education Center.<\/p>\n
\"It was great,\" she said, noting that she did most of her
\nresearch on the Internet. \"You could see what stage the package
\nwas at -- and the price was excellent.\"<\/p>\n
At the end of the course, she and her daughter sent a 16-
\nkilogram package containing two years worth of work, which
\nincluded a folio of oil paintings, a visual diary and sketches so
\nAlexia could get her Victorian Certificate of Education.<\/p>\n
More often than not, couriers are dealt with not by expats
\nthemselves but rather by their Indonesian employees.<\/p>\n
Such is the case with Sri Newindrati, the assistant to the New
\nZealand Aid officer and manager of the scholarship and
\neducational fund at the Embassy of New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Sri uses DHL to ship a diplomatic pouch -- most often filled
\nwith sensitive documents like passports and diplomatic
\ncorrespondence -- every Tuesday. Returned correspondence and
\nother mail arrives again via DHL each Thursday.<\/p>\n
That, according to Sri, is the easy part. Things tend to get a
\nlittle more complicated when she needs to ship passports and
\nother documents within the sprawling Indonesian archipelago.<\/p>\n
Java is not an issue. \"As long as the destination of a package
\nis in Java, it will probably get there within one to three days,\"
\nsaid Sri, who works with PT Tiki Jalur Nugraha Ekakurir in
\nsending documents to Indonesian cities outside Java.<\/p>\n
The problems lie elsewhere -- notably far-flung and hard-to-
\nreach locations. \"I never know if it's going out today or not,\"
\nshe said. \"It's dependent on local airlines which can be
\ndelayed.\"<\/p>\n
For example: \"If it's in a city outside Jayapura, it can take
\none week or two weeks,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Sri, however, believes Tiki does a good job given the
\nchallenges it faces when shipping packages to remote places.
\n\"Tiki has representatives all over Indonesia,\" she said.<\/p>",
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