Does anyone use Fastway couriers?

[movietub]

We do, they are fantastic but sadly only cover certain regions/postcodes.

Anyone who uses them will know exactly what I mean and how frustrating it can be to have to ship a parcel outside of these zones, which costs more money, requires filling out of forms rather than just sticking a label on and (in my experience) is more likely to get damaged!

We have been speaking with one of the big cheeses and are pressuring them to negotiate a fixed rate label to deliver to all areas of the UK for c£5.95 upto 25kg inc insurance.

Anyone else use them? If so I'm sure you will be interested in joining our little campaign...

[easiprint]

We use them for local only. I understand what you are saying about lack of coverage of some postcodes, but for local stuff, you can't beat their £2.95 service. Fastway have a bad reputation within some areas, but thats all because some franchised areas are better run than others. Thankfully our area is one of the good ones!!!

[jamie1183]

We use Fastway to distribute some of our newspapers in Sheffield for the mercury newspaper always been pretty good, but as we only do local deliverys never had a problem with out of region

[AndyP]

hi chaps

depending on volumes they will do fixed rate deals UK wide/all areas.....for quite a lot less than has been mentioned here, its called a flexi-label agreement.... but it is all to do with volumes.... thats the key point.....

[CableGuy]

We use them a few times a week for large wholesale orders.

It's a lottery - some areas we use them for are great, others are poor. I sent an order to a new wholesale customer the other day - the order was sent Tuesday and didn't arrive until Thursday 4pm. Not the best impression.

I don't have the same confidence in Fastway as I do other couriers, so I don't think we'll continue to use them in the future.

[who_me]

Their local same day service is great but hand writing labels makes it prohibitive for us to use them. If they came up with a printed label upload solution they'd clean up for local small packet rates.

Personally I would never use them for long distance they're too expensive and much like the general census here i wouldn't trust them to get it there in good time and in one piece.

The royal mail are introducing a new 2 day small packet signed for service for only a couple of quid, that seems to fill a gap in the market.

It's called "tracker" if you're interested?

[AndyP]

"If they came up with a printed label upload solution they'd clean up for local small packet rates."

....they have this available...we don't use it ourselves as we have our own system but it is available as they wanted us to use it...as for "too expensive"...sorry, no way...as I said before, its all about volume but if you move enough product per day they will do very good deals using their flexi-label system..I don't want to go into actual figures here as that wouldn't be fair and I guess its for each person to negotiate their own deal but we spend a lot of time talking to couriers in general and Fastway have yet to be beaten.....as for being reliable...our last two quarters have achieved slightly under 98% next day delivery...personally I don't think thats too bad at all....and certainly no worse than ther couriers that we have worked with.

[who_me]

"If they came up with a printed label upload solution they'd clean up for local small packet rates."

....they have this available...we don't use it ourselves as we have our own system but it is available as they wanted us to use it...as for "too expensive"...sorry, no way...as I said before, its all about volume but if you move enough product per day they will do very good deals using their flexi-label system..I don't want to go into actual figures here as that wouldn't be fair and I guess its for each person to negotiate their own deal but we spend a lot of time talking to couriers in general and Fastway have yet to be beaten.....as for being reliable...our last two quarters have achieved slightly under 98% next day delivery...personally I don't think thats too bad at all....and certainly no worse than ther couriers that we have worked with.

Our local company didn't have the automated label service available, also it's a packet rate, so if you have several packets to a consignment then you have to pay more... (most of our consignments are a few boxes each)

...if they do have the capabilities that your suggesting then they lied to us which make no sense because we dispatch thousands of boxes every month.

This said, i still don't trust them nationally especially when the outsource to DHL, we ship printed items to customers that order stuff thats scheduled to be delivered on a Friday to use that weekend... even a 98% success rate isn't worth the headache of sorting the 2% mess out... and believe me hell hath no furry like a businessman standing at an expo stand with no brochures, pop ups and posters.

[AndyP]

Well I guess we have differing opinions. I am not "suggesting", it's fact. I am not lying. Why would I? There is nothing for me to gain here, I am simply offering advice based on our own experience.

Out of interest, who do you trust to deliver a better than 98% next day success rate as scrolling back you don't appear to have mentioned anyone?

[movietub]

Their local same day service is great but hand writing labels makes it prohibitive for us to use them. If they came up with a printed label upload solution they'd clean up for local small packet rates.

Personally I would never use them for long distance they're too expensive and much like the general census here i wouldn't trust them to get it there in good time and in one piece.

The royal mail are introducing a new 2 day small packet signed for service for only a couple of quid, that seems to fill a gap in the market.

It's called "tracker" if you're interested?

But Fastway don't require any writing on the labels? You just peel the appropriate payment label and stick it on the parcel.

I have to say that price-wise we have found no-one that competes with them. Even the other companies we use and have spoken to all say that 'no-one beats fastway' - which is a dramatic thing to say but so far I have to admit it looks to be correct!

[movietub]

"If they came up with a printed label upload solution they'd clean up for local small packet rates."

....they have this available...we don't use it ourselves as we have our own system but it is available as they wanted us to use it...as for "too expensive"...sorry, no way...as I said before, its all about volume but if you move enough product per day they will do very good deals using their flexi-label system..I don't want to go into actual figures here as that wouldn't be fair and I guess its for each person to negotiate their own deal but we spend a lot of time talking to couriers in general and Fastway have yet to be beaten.....as for being reliable...our last two quarters have achieved slightly under 98% next day delivery...personally I don't think thats too bad at all....and certainly no worse than ther couriers that we have worked with.

Our volume of packages that we would send through fastway (if they would cover all areas for a fixed rate!) would be around 100 parcels a week.

We have made a little progress so far with them... There were a handful of fixed rate agreements in place, introduced by a new area manager that had previously worked for them in New Zealand. Sadly one of the big cheeses found out, didn't like it and stopped the practice. Since then he's gone and a new blokes in that is 'open minded' but doesnt seem in a rush to commit to this scheme, or even agree prices in principal for fixed rate labels.

My plan is to get a few of us together and give him a nudge by submitting a keen interest together! Even if only on a pilot basis from their point of view.

As for Fastway quality I don't believe anyone else is tangibly much better, probably UPS are technically better but no-one within the same price bracket.

[who_me]

Well I guess we have differing opinions. I am not "suggesting", it's fact. I am not lying. Why would I? There is nothing for me to gain here, I am simply offering advice based on our own experience.

Out of interest, who do you trust to deliver a better than 98% next day success rate as scrolling back you don't appear to have mentioned anyone?

Sorry i wasn't suggesting that "you" lied, i'm suggesting that when they were asked about automated labels "they" said they couldn't.

We use TNT, i'm not saying that they never miss a delivery but it's over 99.9%... saying that, that is only what we know about, but most shipments are date sensitive, so usually we get to know by 6pm on the sceduled dlivery date if the client hasn't received their goods and thankfully it's very rare.

Service is the most important thing for our company so whilst price is obviously important it's service that seals the deal.

[lesliedocherty]

Fastways are terrible, just do a search on the forum, there are a great number of threads where they are mentioned, and every one has decided they are truly terrible to deal with.

lelsie

[AndyP]

On the other hand leslie do bear in mind that feedback is usually subjective....especially in this sort of area........for the most part people complain rather than praise......obviously I can only speak based on our own experience and that is far from terrible...in fact I can stand uo and say that they are good....clearly the odd parcel is late (2 in 100 based on the last six months of figures) but compared to our experience dealing with DHL direct prior to using Fastway they are absolute saints.......that said we now use DHL for our international deliveries and they have been fine....

Bottom line is that everyone needs to go through their own experience and do what works best for themselves.

[who_me]

Bottom line is that everyone needs to go through their own experience and do what works best for themselves.

Totally agree... we would leave TNT in a heart beat if they cocked up too many deliveries.

[movietub]

So essentially no one is interested in getting fixed rate deliveries other than me?!

[lesliedocherty]

Problem is fastways in scotland are terrible, i would never ever recomend them to anyone

[AndyP]

well we already have a fixed rate and its already available as I have said several times.....so I am not really sure what you are hoping to achieve...but if you have plan lets hear it..:)

[movietub]

well we already have a fixed rate and its already available as I have said several times.....so I am not really sure what you are hoping to achieve...but if you have plan lets hear it..:)

Andy,

Could you PM me with some details? If possible the name of the person who set it up?

I'm struggling to get this moving and fed up with DHL.

Would be very much appreciated!

Cheers

[martin001]

I will be having a meeting this morning with Fastway with regards to our deliveries. I would be interested with regards to negative comments about Fastway, is whether you would have the same comments about ParcelForce, or to compare the two how you would then comment?

Our rates will definately be fixed, and also we would be integrating with the servers or wouldnt be even considering them.

We send hundreds of parcels a week so this would be no meager transition for us, but then I owe Parcelforce absolutely no loyalty at all on their track record, in my business a saving of £1 a parcel (acheivable) would make a huge difference, but either way we would split test them and run Parcelforce / fastway in paralell to compare the results before making that move.

One of the attractions for me, is that each fastway franchisee owns that business and I would therefore assume they would try a lot harder than the ******** working at Parcelforce.

Will keep you updated.

[Black dog]

We have been using them for a couple of years, and generally their service is excellent. It is frustrating that they do not (as yet) cover the whole of the UK, and equally frustrating when an area which previously had a franchisee becomes de-franchised. The only problems re. deliveries (or rather, non-deliveries) seem to occur when the address is out of their area and the job has to be handed over to a third party carrier. Also, reliance on satnav when making rural deliveries often results in them being unable to locate an address (for goodness sake, why don't they just ASK someone?). But then, this applies to all delivery firms. I would be interested in joining any pressure group.

[lesliedocherty]

Martin,

I would be careful, i know how hard you worked to get your business to this point, your other thread is a great read, Fastways in Scotland have a terrible reputation and when they hand over to a third party servie becomes non existent, it will cause you problems.

APC are great and also the german DPD/interlink ?

But just be careful

[bnt76]

We used to (used to use Fastways) in Swindon for the day job I work for. I brought several new accounts when generating new business who subsequently placed orders with us.

Did they get there orders? Did they heck as like in fact we lost two as they had no confidence in us supplying the product.

Needless to say we binned them, the cheeky git driver said he was leaving Fastway and tried to sell us his services through another courier!!!!

We use APC or (cant post links yet so use your imagination) ukshuttle . co. uk

They have been fantastic I have been with the company for 3 years in February next year and have delivered for us in spades. I do not work for APC by the way!!!

[birches]

Our experience of Fastway hasn't been too great. They just aren't very reliable - both on picking the item up when they say they will, and on delivering the item in a reasonable time.

Unless we have an order where we don't care too much on when it will be delivered (which is rare) we don't use them! So we won't be buying any more tickets.

[urban33ltd]

Well we have been using them since may.

Have been fairly good, better than DHL thats for sure. We have had problems, with scottish deliveries lost a customer because of this.

The forwarders they use are normally the ones to damage items, then when I tried to claim I was told that the forwarder doesnt cover claims!!!!!

Also have a claim with them for a damaged item from September and still no money.

I may look around for another one, but to be honest I am not sure there is a better one..........think you will have problems with all of them.

Not to happy that the price has gone up to £8.99 for outside of their area, that is quite expensive.

Stu

[MH1]

Nice to see some people get on with fastways.

Personally I have used DHL through an agent for the last two years and so far not had a problem, but I only send 20-30 items a week. The flat rate anywhere to most of the UK mainland apart from a couple of very remote areas for £6-7 is hard to beat for up to 32kgs.

I use them for the reliability and ease of use, and being a national company means the buck stops with them, no need to worry if the franchisee will still be operating next month.

[deniser]

For local stuff, you can't beat their £2.95 service.

Just wanted to check - is that what you all pay for the local service - and is that the county you are in?

Just asking as they have quoted £3.95 for local service to me, local being the whole of Kent.

[movietub]

A few people are commenting about Fastway not being easy to use - and I'm confused!

When we get an order we print a delivery label/pick note straight from the shop which we slip inside a document pouch and attach to the box (total time - 20 secs) and we simply peel a fastway sticker from the booklet we buy from them and stick it on the box! (maybe 5 secs). And thats it, the package is adressed and ready to pick up for next day delivery. We retain our copy of the fastway sticker in case we need to track the delivery.

With DHL we had to log into an account and fill out the address etc which would then print a label.

It sounded like some people had a different experience? Am I missing something?

[martin001]

For now I am staying with ParcelForce, better the devil you know. I do think Fastway have a business model that can work, but perhaps in another 3 years.

[lesliedocherty]

Hi Martin,

Hows your business doing, still doing as well

[gibby]

Interesting posts

We started off using fastway and never had a problem with a single delivery.
We have since moved to other firms for national delivery keeping fastway for locals mainly as we could get far better prices.

Our local guy Andy is really good & Im pleased to see the business expanding for him as the service is far better than all of the others we have used.

What has put us off using them for all our deliveries is having to buy the labels in advance, as we need 3 sets of them & to keep the prices right we have to do 200 of each month.

To protect our business, in the wake of being ripped off elsewhere, we really dont want to take the risk of buying 1Ks of tickets in advance when so many firms are going under.
its also not good for cashflow.
Possibly if they were cheaper we would but we are getting far better prices from parcel force & UK mail at the moment

I also see they have now partnered with Parcel force to cover the non franchise areas, which can only improve service as customers really hate DHL

G

[movietub]

I couldn't agree more that its good to see Fastway partnering with Parcelforce. DHL are a good example of the being the cheapest by being one of the worst. I used to hate sending packages through DHL to 'certain areas' as I knew the liklehood of the item being mistreated was pretty high. If I can spot a trend why can't DHL bosses and fire the clumsy handlers?

I too used to find that buying labels in bulk was a nightmare for cash-flow. I have since spoken to them about this and it was pointed out that this is integral to their business model. Essentially ensuring they only ever deal with volume rather than occasional pickups. Fair enough and an honest answer which is good!

Now we have negotiated a fixed rate for all areas (a good rate!) and they are reliable. I'm extremely happy.

[gibby]

Ill have to get onto them about a fixed rate

they did come & see us a month or so back but couldnt offer us any discount on prices but were keen to take out 50 parcels a week.

We did use them for all our local deliveries as we had a book of tickets but havnt got around to buying another.

I wouldnt say DHL were cheap - they were far more expensive then PF or Fastway when we last spoke to them, kind of the same price as city link from what we remember

G

[MH1]

I wouldnt say DHL were cheap - they were far more expensive then PF or Fastway when we last spoke to them, kind of the same price as city link from what we remember


Depends on quantities, DHL direct like large users, and prefer smaller users to got through agents, who then have to deal with all the various emails etc for lost/incorrect deliveries.

Through an agent even someone sending just 1 parcel can get sub £6 door to door mainland UK for up to 30kgs, which is reasonably cheap IMO. Obviously if you send a lot you can negotiate with all the carriers on rates.

[clevelandh]

We use Fastway Couriers & up until now we had been ok with them, (despite having to deal with numerous changes in drivers). Recently however we have been let down by them, we had two urgent deliveries that were arranged to be pick up & delivered next day but upon calling the driver we found out that he no longer works for them - apparently he left several weeks ago but no one told us! He also was unable to give us any alternative arrangements we have constantly called the office No's given to us but we have found that no one ever picks up the phone it is only ever a ansamachine & if you leave a message no-one ever gets back to you (We have called a total of 15 times over the last two days!) We have paid for subscription notes and yet cant use them! Is there anyone out the that can advise us on how to contact them the only No's we have are the Walsall No's: 01902 508 220 or 0845 603 8184

Rsvp

Salonex

[AndyP]

Hmmm..that does seem pretty poor doesn't it. I just called the numbers and see what you mean! I would not be impressed either. What about calling one of the other depots and seeing if they can help?

http://www.fastwaycouriers.co.uk/8Directory_RFdepots.html

[gibby]

Not had any real issues despite it getting really busy

I did hear one of the depots down that way has no working telephones or internet as a lorry went through the wires recently & our local driver has been unable to chase 1 order we sent that way that seems to have got lost

Ive also been told another depot in the Midlands has just closed as the owner died & they have been unable to find a replacement.

We find the mistake/loss rate with Fastway is far lower than other couriers we use. We dont use them for their non areas as they use UK Mail/Business Post who are hopeless.

Hope that helps

G

[KidsBeeHappy]

I did hear one of the depots down that way has no working telephones or internet as a lorry went through the wires recently & our local driver has been unable to chase 1 order we sent that way that seems to have got lost

Ive also been told another depot in the Midlands has just closed as the owner died & they have been unable to find a replacement.



For both of those excuses read "franchise owner has gone of bankrupt, and they haven't yet been able to sell the franchise onto somebody else"

[clevelandh]

Thanks Andyp, Gibby & Boxby for your info I've managed to speak to a lady called Linda in Sussex who has furnished me with a number to contact I have called and spoken to A Cirah who is going to email a Regional Manager in my area to call me back today I shall await with baited breath! :)

[AndyP]

Oh well done....I hope you get things sorted! :)

[Fur'n'Feathers]

we have used fastway for a year or so and found them ok.....however, the local franchise has just pulled out and I am now left with over £300 of useless labels they will not refund or pass on!!!!!
keep this in mind when buying labels.

[gibby]

I would check where you stand legally with this. Either Fastway or the local courier will be liable to repay you.

Once the recession kicked in we refused to buy tickets up front with Fastway.
They do offer a 4 week credit service & I know they now have a pay as you go service.

G

[Fur'n'Feathers]

thanks for that Gibby.....will let you know how I get on
Janice

[ICS]

Hi Janice,

I have sent you a PM I would be delighted to quote for this business and can offer some very competitive rates for UK & Int deliveries

Best Regards,

ICS

[clevelandh]

Hi Gibby Saw your message to Janice (Furs & feathers) didn't know they give credit!? Our regular driver reportedly had an accident couldn't get deliveries collected until I called the depot and insisted that they sort something out!, (I suggest you keep on to them Janice I'm sure if you persist they will eventually concede) eventually they got another driver from another route to do the pick-up still not sure when our driver will be back! Didn't get much in the way of feed back. wanted to use the new driver but being told despite his collection time being more suitable to our needs we have to use the regular one due to boundary restrictions anyway we are out of vouchers & given Janice's experience wont be buying another any-time soon unless its by pay as you go or by credit.

Good Luck Janice.

[gibby]

they were giving us the pre paid bags in advance & asking for the money 4 weeks later. The drivers all had a change around and the new driver just brings a pack of 20 as we ask for them & we pay for them as we get them delivered.

There were a few issues over the xmas period as parts of the NE were snowed in so they didnt collect for a few days but we had worse issues with DHL as everything stopped for more than a week.