NIPOST introduces N500 handling charge
by Felix Okoli

For people who love to shop on Chinese websites like Aliexpress or other global websites that normally ship to Nigeria through the postal mail, this may be bad news because it would ultimately increase their online shopping costs.

It's official! The Nigerian Postal Service a.k.a. NIPOST has recently introduced a flat handling charge for small parcels received from abroad. The receiver of the parcel would have to pay at least N500 before he collects his package. You would see the notice placed at a visible spot and close to the package collection center.

I recently went to the NIPOST office to collect a package I ordered for on Aliexpress.com. It was basically a 50,000maH power bank charger and if you are in Nigeria, you'd agree that one needs this stuff in a country where power supply is still insufficient. So, I found it for cheap on Aliexpress and it was priced at just $18 and this included the shipping to Nigeria. I chose to use postal mail shipping since it was the cheapest although it took about 30 days to get to me. I later got a notification from NIPOST to come for collection.

When I arrived NIPOST, I had to stay in line due to the fact that some other people there were also waiting for their package. We soon started discussing about the new handling charge and from our discussion, we resolved that the Nigerian factor has again come to play in NIPOST and one Oga at the Top was actually collecting and embezzling this money they are now collecting. I also got to know that most of us bought our items from Aliexpress.com and so it now seems that NIPOST is getting a lot of parcels lately, especially from China and so, might have just introduced these fees just to make money which may never get into the account of government. We could be wrong.

I was a bit surprised that a person has to pay money just to collect a parcel the sender has already sent and paid postage fees for. I remember the good old days when I used to use NIPOST and those were the days when we used to write letters to our parents from boarding school or to friends and we had to make use of postal mail services. Then you'd had to first write a letter, place it in an envelope and then go to the Post office to buy a Postal stamp so that the letter will be sent through NIPOST anywhere in Nigeria. With NIPOST, one could also send a letter to anywhere in the world but unlike online e-mail services which are delivered in seconds, it took a much longer time. It just seems that NIPOST is just looking for newer avenues to start making more money since people no longer patronized their once popular postal mail system for sending letters as they used to and stamps are becoming less attractive.

Anyway, I wasn't sure if I was going to have to pay the fee but I decided to pay it just to save my time and as long I'm also issued an official receipt for it. When it reached my turn, the guy confirmed that I would also have to pay the N500 flat handling charge on my single parcel weighing just less than 0.5kg. Well, I didn't mind paying since it would still save me money unlike if I were to have bought the item from most of these local online shopping websites we now have in Nigeria. A 50,000mah Power bank in the Nigerian market costs about N15,000 while If I were to use this Aliexpress to Nipost method, it would save me about N8,000.

After making the N500 handling charge payment to the NIPOST staff, he issued a receipt and also gave me my parcel. We tried to complain to the management of NIPOST but after asking the staff there who the Oga at the top was, nobody was willing to show us his office and no one was really willing to provide us with answers why we have to pay a fee to collect a parcel at NIPOST when the sender has already paid fees.

With this new system of increasing charges when using NIPOST for receiving items, it seems customers of NIPOST may just have to consider the new N500 handling charge as part of the costs associated with collecting a parcel and for Aliexpress shoppers who use NIPOST, they just have to include the additional cost to their online shopping costs. I also heard that the N500 was just for smaller packages but that the costs would increase for larger packages since other things such as custom charges would be included.

I guess one would have to consider the profitability of using NIPOST in the future when next one decides to receive a parcel in Nigeria. One would alos have to consider the time delay it took in getting the parcel through them. If both variables are favourable, then it would be wise to continue using NIPOST to receive parcels in Nigeria from Aliexpress. Other options would have to be using courier services like DHL and Fedex since they deliver faster. There is also the option of shopping on Amazon rather than Aliexpress if it would make better sense.