# How is the postal service in Alicante, torrevieja



## SpanishFly (Aug 16, 2016)

How is the postal service in Alicante, torrevieja?

I am a BIG ebayer, I love it and its also a second source of income for me here in the UK as I often buy computers and fix them then sell them.

I would like to try and continue this hobby in Spain when I get there as its my hobby and I love doing it as well as getting well needed extra pennies 

The postal service in the UK I gotta say is amazing, its cheap, I've never had any missing items after 1000's of transactions and its really fast.

How is the service in Alicante area of Spain? Is it as great as the Royal Mail?

Also I have noticed the doors in Spain don't seem to have letter boxes so do they just have outside mail boxes?

I'm often selling items off all sizes so, how are the courier services too?

Any info appreciated! :third:


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## Islandseeker (Sep 30, 2016)

Not sure but its bad in Ibiza. Spain is pretty behind with postage due to various historical factors.


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## Islandseeker (Sep 30, 2016)

By the way does anyone know the price of calls from an orange Spain phone to landlines and mobiles in spain?


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## Tom1957 (May 1, 2016)

In my experience Royal Mail is anything but cheap and reliable.


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## Islandseeker (Sep 30, 2016)

Oh yeah, its common for spainish people to have a PO Box.


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## SpanishFly (Aug 16, 2016)

Tom1957 said:


> In my experience Royal Mail is anything but cheap and reliable.


They really are IMO I've been ebay years over 10 thousand transactions most small items and never had a missing one.


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## ccm47 (Oct 15, 2013)

One of the "delights" of moving to a new country is realising just what benefits you enjoyed in the old one!

Ebay has not really caught on in Spain. If you google ebay.es/informatico as I did last night you will find that very little is listed for bids from private sellers. Everything is buy it now and comes from China, Poland or Germany. Delivery times will therefore vary considerably. A week to 10 days is pretty standard for anything within Spain as the country is just so much bigger than the UK and going from A to B may include diversions to hub C and D all of which are hundreds of miles away from the destination.

Spanish mail boxes are grouped together, somehwere convenient for the postman. In our case outside the complex, across the road, and up a hill to a wooden chalet. There are then a couple of hundred boxes for the postman to deliver to. Getting it right is hit and miss, 50:50 so we and our Spanish neighbours rent boxes at the Post Office and have to drive into town to collect it. Everybody we know who can afford to do this, does so.We still have to go the mailbox as publicity flyers are delivered there to all boxes whether we want it or not.

If your UK postal service is good then buy the guys a drink! Wherever I've been the word dire comes to mind and I think many other expats on here would agree.

Couriers have the same logisitcal constraints as the postal service regarding delivery times. Overnight services only work if they have a hub almost next to a major airport. The drivers will do their best to deliver to you on schedule but you have to be prepared to give them directions over the phone in Spanish' and then go outside and wait in the street.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

ccm47 said:


> Spanish mail boxes are grouped together, somehwere convenient for the postman. In our case outside the complex, across the road, and up a hill to a wooden chalet. There are then a couple of hundred boxes for the postman to deliver to. Getting it right is hit and miss, 50:50 so we and our Spanish neighbours rent boxes at the Post Office and have to drive into town to collect it. Everybody we know who can afford to do this, does so.We still have to go the mailbox as publicity flyers are delivered there to all boxes whether we want it or not.
> 
> If your UK postal service is good then buy the guys a drink!


I'd just like to say that if you live in a large town or city in Spain, the situation described in your first paragraph doesn't apply. I live in the historical centre of a big town in Andalucia. We get a postal delivery every day, Monday to Friday and our post delivery person even recognises us if we are out and about in the street and hands over our mail there and then. She once came into the local water company office to deliver their mail whilst we were sittiing waiting to be seen, and after going into the back office with their post, came out and walked over to us to hand over our mail with a friendly greetiing. I've never had such good postal service when I lived in the UK, and yes we did give her an envelope with a small cash gift inside at Christmas!

Correos is a lot better at making deliveries here than the various courier companies are - they tend to say our address doesn't exist, probably because they can't drive to it so their satnav can't cope.


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## ccm47 (Oct 15, 2013)

Treasure that post lady then . Clearly she enjoys her job and wants to give good service.
The staff in the Correos office will fetch mail from our box if they see we are queuing for the same space as somebody else, but nobody can really be expected to take an interest when faced with 200 or even just 20, more or less identical boxes.


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

We have no complaints about the postal service although we live in a remote rural area and don't have a delivery to our house. We do, however, have a Correos post box and this works fine. When we have a parcel delivered to our post box Correos send us an SMS to tell us there is something to collect. On a few rare occasions over the years official letters have been sent to our actual address and these were left at our Ayuntamiento for collection. We have several times received a call from the Ayuntamiento or the postman himself to tell us that something has been delivered there, especially if it looks official! As far as I know nothing has ever gone astray in the last eight years.


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