The South African Post Office (SAPO) has a reputation of slow delivery times and lost packages, which means South Africans avoid using the service unless they have no other choice.

To see whether the Post Office’s poor reputation is deserved, MyBroadband tested its letter delivery service.

For the test, MyBroadband members sent letters from across South Africa to the Lyttelton Post Office – and we tracked how long these letters took to arrive.

The members who sent the letters also provided feedback on their experience at their Post Office branches.

Posting a letter

There were mixed experiences from users when sending a letter via the Post Office, which were dependent on which branch was used.

While many reported that they had horrible experiences, others remarked that the service at their local Post Office was fast and friendly.

The negative feedback from the MyBroadband members is below.

“My experience was poor. Only one teller was open, there were no working credit card facilities, and there were no envelopes. I had to go the PNA to purchase envelopes.” “The Post Office was a horrid place, with very slow and incompetent people, which means it took 20 minutes to send a letter.” “Using the Post Office was a horrible experience, and the branch which I used had no envelopes or stamps.”

There was also positive feedback, although these experiences were the exception.

“The Ballito Post Office offered great service – a quick and painless experience which took about five minutes.” “I had initially gone to the Kraaifontein branch, but the queue was long – there were over 10 people and there was only one counter open. I then decided to go to the Stellenbosch branch instead and there were no queues.”

The test results

MyBroadband logged all the sent letters and tracked them to see how long it takes for a letter to arrive in our postbox.

The findings to date show that only one letter has arrived – which was sent via Fastmail in the neighbourhood next to our local Post Office.

After over a week of waiting, none of the other letters have arrived, independent of whether they were sent via Fastmail or normal mail.

The graphic below provides an overview of the results of MyBroadband’s Post Office Test.

It must be noted that this experiment continues, and updates will be provided going forward.

The Post Office silent on delivery times

MyBroadband contacted the South African Post Office regarding the letter delivery test, but the company did not provide feedback.

The Post Office also did not answer questions about its Fastmail service.