Best Postage Solutions For Small E-Commerce Store Selling UK & Overseas
- Thread starter moorland72
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J
Joe Tagg
Bit late to the party, apologies if I've missed some key details from the thread. Definitely do a search for the 'Royal Mail Business Price Guide 25 March 2019'. I'll reference some key pages below.
- For low value items (<£30), Royal Mail untracked is typically the cheapest option by far
- If you're sending 1000+ parcels per year to the UK, Royal Mail 48 would be a decent option, which would cost £2.26 for parcels up to 1kg. See page 16 of RM price guide.
- For your international orders, Royal Mail Business Parcels (Zone Sort) would be a good one to look at. Approx £5.50 and £8 for Europe and Rest of World respectively. See page 33 of RM price guide.
- If your items are worth more than £30, then it might be worth considering a tracked service.
- For the UK, Royal Mail Tracked 48 would probably be best and would cost around £4 - you'd need to contact them directly for an accurate quote on this.
- For Europe, Royal Mail Business Parcels Tracked and Signed is best. See page 29 of RM price guide - cost would be approx. £10
- For USA, Fedex do a next day service for around £15 - you'd have to enquire with them directly to get an exact price.
Hope that's useful,
Joe
- For low value items (<£30), Royal Mail untracked is typically the cheapest option by far
- If you're sending 1000+ parcels per year to the UK, Royal Mail 48 would be a decent option, which would cost £2.26 for parcels up to 1kg. See page 16 of RM price guide.
- For your international orders, Royal Mail Business Parcels (Zone Sort) would be a good one to look at. Approx £5.50 and £8 for Europe and Rest of World respectively. See page 33 of RM price guide.
- If your items are worth more than £30, then it might be worth considering a tracked service.
- For the UK, Royal Mail Tracked 48 would probably be best and would cost around £4 - you'd need to contact them directly for an accurate quote on this.
- For Europe, Royal Mail Business Parcels Tracked and Signed is best. See page 29 of RM price guide - cost would be approx. £10
- For USA, Fedex do a next day service for around £15 - you'd have to enquire with them directly to get an exact price.
Hope that's useful,
Joe
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I would definitely consider Royal Mail. They have the best prices and a fantastic nationwide infrastructure and in my view, a great customer service.
Lots of info here: https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/royal-mail-business-price-guide-25-march-2019_1.pdf
Lots of info here: https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/royal-mail-business-price-guide-25-march-2019_1.pdf
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The only issue with rm is that they no longer have delivery confirmations on standard services so every parcel we send via RM is signed for which is not the best for customers who work and yes I know there website says they do give delivery confirmation but they simply don't click and drop control panels simply says no tracking available
I use my hermes yes you have to watch them like a hawk but if you put a rocket up there backside they do sort things out with carriers you will have parcels lost no matter who you use as yet my hermes can be difficult but keep a file on what goes missing and reference the different ref numbers they give you to the original but they payout and value proof wise just upload the sales invoice try doing that with rm they want individual component receipts and only pay the cost of materials
I use my hermes yes you have to watch them like a hawk but if you put a rocket up there backside they do sort things out with carriers you will have parcels lost no matter who you use as yet my hermes can be difficult but keep a file on what goes missing and reference the different ref numbers they give you to the original but they payout and value proof wise just upload the sales invoice try doing that with rm they want individual component receipts and only pay the cost of materials
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We always use Royal Mail for items under 2kg for UK and have a fixed rate around £6.00 for Parcelforce UK (mainland).
Royal Mail 2d Barcodes give delivery confirmation and you can contact business support for GPS location confirmation which we find suffices in 9./10 cases. However, I do appreciate that this is not delivery proof i.e. no signature. (ebay and Amazon accept it more often than note which is excellent and it has helped multiple customers when tracking shows item is awaiting collection from delivery office).
What do your competition use? If you have the margin to offer a better delivery service and you are building regular/loyal customers then you should use the best service you can afford. I think anything with SMS/1 hour slots is great.
Interparcel.com are competitive and so is wedelivertheworld.com for outside UK bigger parcels.
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Like others said before me, for small and low value go with Royal Mail. Anything else you need to research in more detail.
Rich
Royal Mail 2d Barcodes give delivery confirmation and you can contact business support for GPS location confirmation which we find suffices in 9./10 cases. However, I do appreciate that this is not delivery proof i.e. no signature. (ebay and Amazon accept it more often than note which is excellent and it has helped multiple customers when tracking shows item is awaiting collection from delivery office).
What do your competition use? If you have the margin to offer a better delivery service and you are building regular/loyal customers then you should use the best service you can afford. I think anything with SMS/1 hour slots is great.
Interparcel.com are competitive and so is wedelivertheworld.com for outside UK bigger parcels.
--
Like others said before me, for small and low value go with Royal Mail. Anything else you need to research in more detail.
Rich
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Same here! RM 2d barcodes give delivery confirmation at the very least and in my experience when you contact RM business support they can also use their internal GPS geo location tracking with the 2d barcode.
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S
Smit15
Hi all,
I need to start shipping a subscription box (think a small pizza box for size and weight) worldwide. I will be shipping all of my boxes on the same day so would need them collecting from my location and then delivering to all of my customers. Numbers will be small but then scale up as the business grows. I'm looking for quotes for prices to UK, EMEA and USA. Ideally tracked too!
Please help.
Thankyou.
I need to start shipping a subscription box (think a small pizza box for size and weight) worldwide. I will be shipping all of my boxes on the same day so would need them collecting from my location and then delivering to all of my customers. Numbers will be small but then scale up as the business grows. I'm looking for quotes for prices to UK, EMEA and USA. Ideally tracked too!
Please help.
Thankyou.
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J
Jessica Bruce
Normally people build their online store by subscribing to Shopify or WooCommerce. It is easy to setup & starts with your selling.
Further down their online business, they need to integrate something into their store to make it better for usage, then they buy a few plugins. When everything else fails, they tend to migrate to another platform which is also Saas. This keeps ongoing.
TO cut back on all these difficulties in your online store, I have a better solution for you, you should get your online store built from scratch.
Don’t worry I’m not asking you code. All you have to do is find the customized eCommerce solution providers who can help you build your very own store site from the latest technology & features requirement.
The tools needed to sell online don’t come cheap. But using open source software can delete at least one monthly fee. Plus you’ll have greater control over your online presence.
Some of today’s most popular carts are open source solutions, including the most widely-downloaded and used platform on the web – WooCommerce.
If you’ve got the tech skills and time to play with CSS, HTML, and even Ruby on Rails while hanging out in code forums, you’re probably the right candidate for an open-source eCommerce platform. And if you don’t have the time but you do have the funds and desire to hire someone who can manipulate almost every aspect of your eCommerce site, you might also be interested in open source eCommerce platforms.
Further down their online business, they need to integrate something into their store to make it better for usage, then they buy a few plugins. When everything else fails, they tend to migrate to another platform which is also Saas. This keeps ongoing.
TO cut back on all these difficulties in your online store, I have a better solution for you, you should get your online store built from scratch.
Don’t worry I’m not asking you code. All you have to do is find the customized eCommerce solution providers who can help you build your very own store site from the latest technology & features requirement.
The tools needed to sell online don’t come cheap. But using open source software can delete at least one monthly fee. Plus you’ll have greater control over your online presence.
Some of today’s most popular carts are open source solutions, including the most widely-downloaded and used platform on the web – WooCommerce.
If you’ve got the tech skills and time to play with CSS, HTML, and even Ruby on Rails while hanging out in code forums, you’re probably the right candidate for an open-source eCommerce platform. And if you don’t have the time but you do have the funds and desire to hire someone who can manipulate almost every aspect of your eCommerce site, you might also be interested in open source eCommerce platforms.
- WooCommerce (WordPress)
- X Cart Ecommerce Platform
- ShopyGen
- Magento Community Edition
- PrestaShop
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DPD is goo for the larger parcels, however small parcels up to 2kg Royal Mail is the winner.
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I think it depends, I'm also sending some parcels using UKMail for next day delivery and it's a bit cheaper than Royal Mail for next day delivery. We use Spring & DPD for our international, and it's also quite cost effective. I didn't even need to get my own contract (Myparcel.com), and it's all going well. We are just in the start up phase though.
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A
anon327046
I agree. The Royal Mail is far better than it use to be. I would consider knocking you overseas sales on the head as the postage is very expensive.
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Anyone concerned about the 12% (on average) increases to the amount you pay for business mail that Royal Mail have applied over the last few months (since November 2019) as shown below...?
Nov 2019 – 3.5% increase (fuel surcharge more than doubles from 3% to 6.5%)
Jan 2020 - 4.5% price increase (interim price change)
From Mar 23rd 2020 – 4.2% price increase (annual price change)
% increases vary by service and whether domestic or International but average out at around 12% increased since Nov 19.
A lot of people thought the price increase on Jan 2 was the annnual price increase brought forward not an interim/additional hike.
Nov 2019 – 3.5% increase (fuel surcharge more than doubles from 3% to 6.5%)
Jan 2020 - 4.5% price increase (interim price change)
From Mar 23rd 2020 – 4.2% price increase (annual price change)
% increases vary by service and whether domestic or International but average out at around 12% increased since Nov 19.
A lot of people thought the price increase on Jan 2 was the annnual price increase brought forward not an interim/additional hike.
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P
Pages
Yes, quite an old thread, but it's a valid one worthy of updating.
I will be totally honest here, the main problems with perfect delivery anywhere in the world is the fact that buyers simply cannot fill out their own address properly which messes up the address input fields prior to a label being printed in the regular pre-formatted state.
The solution to this problem, same as for all other delivery service labels, is manual intervention to double check that your customer has typed out their own address properly in the first place, which I then check against their paypal or bank card info to ensure perfect postal address format compliance as per the RM postage standards and make corrections if required. More of my time lost yes, but never a parcel lost which is the ultimate goal here!
I also have COLLECTIONS of my parcels (called courier collect) from a big parcel box at side of my house because I cannot get to a post office or sorting office during office hours due to my day job. You simply book a 'courier collection' instead of selecting 'drop off shop' at point of purchasing your postage label, which is done from your PC.
Alternatively, use any of the now commonplace Hermes 'drop off shop' locations to get your parcels scanned into the system one at a time, very quick and easy with zero problems as the postage label barcode system is perfect for this.
You can do all this via a personal account status for very small sporadic volumes of parcels or get a business account if you're into the hundreds, all easy to do.
DOWNSIDES: my sales come via eBay UK and independent websites with PayPal as the processor.
When I create a postage label from within Hermes account software on PC, the auto generated barcode number (for tracking purposes) has to be manually inserted (copy and paste) into either the eBay transaction back office or PayPal transaction back office which can be a pain sometimes, especially if you have a sudden rush of 10 items to be processed right at bedtime or before you leave the house for work. This can actually be automated using the various plug-ins that link your sales channels to Hermes but I prefer the manual approach to ensure perfect customer delivery address prior to printing the postage labels.
UPSIDES: Cost, ease of use, zero interaction with Royal Mail, I can process my orders and leave them outside ready for courier collection at any time of the day or night 24/7, massive bonus for me. My local collection chap arrives between 2pm and 4pm daily without fail.
Biggest problem Encountered so far: Almost impossible to contact Hermes by phone. Major major drawback.
When posting out of the UK I find that it is almost always the destination address local courier that causes or has a problem. Always arrives eventually but sometimes not in the most timely fashion that I would expect but certainly no worse than any other international postal couriers.
My second choice of courier would be RM 24 or 48, tracked and signed for UK and international but I have problems which prevent that, as well as the higher cost! RM business account is def the way to go if you're a volume seller and get the parcel collection service at your business address too.
My third choice of courier would be DPD UK and international, who are fantastic in every respect but not as cheap or handy for me as is Hermes otherwise they would be very top of my list.
Hope this speech is of help to someone.
...end
I will be totally honest here, the main problems with perfect delivery anywhere in the world is the fact that buyers simply cannot fill out their own address properly which messes up the address input fields prior to a label being printed in the regular pre-formatted state.
The solution to this problem, same as for all other delivery service labels, is manual intervention to double check that your customer has typed out their own address properly in the first place, which I then check against their paypal or bank card info to ensure perfect postal address format compliance as per the RM postage standards and make corrections if required. More of my time lost yes, but never a parcel lost which is the ultimate goal here!
I also have COLLECTIONS of my parcels (called courier collect) from a big parcel box at side of my house because I cannot get to a post office or sorting office during office hours due to my day job. You simply book a 'courier collection' instead of selecting 'drop off shop' at point of purchasing your postage label, which is done from your PC.
Alternatively, use any of the now commonplace Hermes 'drop off shop' locations to get your parcels scanned into the system one at a time, very quick and easy with zero problems as the postage label barcode system is perfect for this.
You can do all this via a personal account status for very small sporadic volumes of parcels or get a business account if you're into the hundreds, all easy to do.
DOWNSIDES: my sales come via eBay UK and independent websites with PayPal as the processor.
When I create a postage label from within Hermes account software on PC, the auto generated barcode number (for tracking purposes) has to be manually inserted (copy and paste) into either the eBay transaction back office or PayPal transaction back office which can be a pain sometimes, especially if you have a sudden rush of 10 items to be processed right at bedtime or before you leave the house for work. This can actually be automated using the various plug-ins that link your sales channels to Hermes but I prefer the manual approach to ensure perfect customer delivery address prior to printing the postage labels.
UPSIDES: Cost, ease of use, zero interaction with Royal Mail, I can process my orders and leave them outside ready for courier collection at any time of the day or night 24/7, massive bonus for me. My local collection chap arrives between 2pm and 4pm daily without fail.
Biggest problem Encountered so far: Almost impossible to contact Hermes by phone. Major major drawback.
When posting out of the UK I find that it is almost always the destination address local courier that causes or has a problem. Always arrives eventually but sometimes not in the most timely fashion that I would expect but certainly no worse than any other international postal couriers.
My second choice of courier would be RM 24 or 48, tracked and signed for UK and international but I have problems which prevent that, as well as the higher cost! RM business account is def the way to go if you're a volume seller and get the parcel collection service at your business address too.
My third choice of courier would be DPD UK and international, who are fantastic in every respect but not as cheap or handy for me as is Hermes otherwise they would be very top of my list.
Hope this speech is of help to someone.
...end
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The same way every courier does? Even royal mail.
Now, goods are not delivered and for whatever reason cannot be returned (seller not paying, no return address, found after reimbursing seller etc) what method should a courier use to get rid of goods?
No space to store them, disposing of in landfill costs money. So what method should be used to sell off what cannot be delivered?
Remember the media is out to tell a story. If they can paint a company in a bad light even better for them. They ignore that stuff is standard practice instead it must be presented as really bad by this company.
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Hi Guys
I've been following and even gave my input on this thread, but I now I also need advice.
I'm currently using RM Drop & Go which is fine, but lately I've been sending 150-200 Large Letters/Small Parcels weighing approx 750g max each, And I have found that the staff at the post office are taking up 2-3 ways to work their way through them before they are loaded into their system. this means my delivery times have an extra 5 working days on them at times, which is causing issues with my customers.
I have been playing around with Click and Drop, and currently only use it for my Non-EU sales, it is fine for this kind of work, as it is only ever 5-10 orders each week. I have been looking at moving everything over to C&D but my problem is, I don't know the weights of all items I am sending. I have got the details from the suppliers for 10,000+ weights and dimensions but there are still 100,000+ products which don't have these details.
In order to print the labels efficiently all products in C&D need a weight and need to be assigned to a package type. typicallly I'm using RM 2nd Class Large Letter or RM 2nd Small Parcel. I was thinking of simply assigning the products with no weights or dimensions a weight of 750g and class them as a small parcel.
Yes this may mean I get charged a min of £2.80 odd for something that should be going as a large letter and costing me around £1.90, but the time saved on dispatches may be worth it.
Does anyone know if RM will put Surcharges on products that I over pay for I know they do it for underpayment.
Is there any other way I can do this so keeping my prices down. Would other couriers insist on knowing weights and dimensions of things?
I've been following and even gave my input on this thread, but I now I also need advice.
I'm currently using RM Drop & Go which is fine, but lately I've been sending 150-200 Large Letters/Small Parcels weighing approx 750g max each, And I have found that the staff at the post office are taking up 2-3 ways to work their way through them before they are loaded into their system. this means my delivery times have an extra 5 working days on them at times, which is causing issues with my customers.
I have been playing around with Click and Drop, and currently only use it for my Non-EU sales, it is fine for this kind of work, as it is only ever 5-10 orders each week. I have been looking at moving everything over to C&D but my problem is, I don't know the weights of all items I am sending. I have got the details from the suppliers for 10,000+ weights and dimensions but there are still 100,000+ products which don't have these details.
In order to print the labels efficiently all products in C&D need a weight and need to be assigned to a package type. typicallly I'm using RM 2nd Class Large Letter or RM 2nd Small Parcel. I was thinking of simply assigning the products with no weights or dimensions a weight of 750g and class them as a small parcel.
Yes this may mean I get charged a min of £2.80 odd for something that should be going as a large letter and costing me around £1.90, but the time saved on dispatches may be worth it.
Does anyone know if RM will put Surcharges on products that I over pay for I know they do it for underpayment.
Is there any other way I can do this so keeping my prices down. Would other couriers insist on knowing weights and dimensions of things?
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@Sparetoolparts i sell a lot of vintage clothing and mostly just guess the weights with click and drop
I've used RM for 100s of large letters and parcels every week for 10 years and been pretty casual about weights
RM don't have time to be looking over your orders every day.
They'll spot if you're abusing the system but if your weights are just a bit off it doesn't make much difference to them so they aren't going to notice.
Revenue protection seem to get in contact once every few months or even a year just to tell you off and hit you with a surcharge. This is just an arbitrary process to remind you they are there and looking over your mail, in my opinion.
I've used RM for 100s of large letters and parcels every week for 10 years and been pretty casual about weights
RM don't have time to be looking over your orders every day.
They'll spot if you're abusing the system but if your weights are just a bit off it doesn't make much difference to them so they aren't going to notice.
Revenue protection seem to get in contact once every few months or even a year just to tell you off and hit you with a surcharge. This is just an arbitrary process to remind you they are there and looking over your mail, in my opinion.
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Click & Drop?
Mine I just hand over the manifest sheet, put the bags in the corner where I always put them and that's it.
Post office staff don't open the bags - the postwoman comes in from her van, grabs a load of bags, loads them in the van and that's it as far as local post office is concerned. While some stuff is taking over a week and some is next day its normal postal service as far as local post office.
Perhaps arrange with your local depot to drop bags off direct?
Weights are easy - just get the weight of one item packed - and enter it. Then its saved for next time.
Takes a little time at the start and doesn't translate to same type of products.
However if you know a blue raincoat of xx size by Caprice is 450g then you can say the same red raincoat in that size is same weight.
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I mainly use Drop & Go, you hand over the parcels, they weigh them and apply the postage and take the money from your pre-paid/credit account. Been using it for years and is ok when I'm not sending 150+ orders each time I turn up 
I also want to get C&D sorted as it has the Export Labels with commodity codes etc and picking list as standard with it. Being in NI, if/when I'll need to export my order to the mainland having these labels pre-printed and filled in will also be a time save also.
My Items are various sizes and weights but 90% are small parcel under 1kg. I have imported all my 1 million SKU's into C&D but as explained not all have weights so unless I had a way of only using C&D for 100k+ SKU's that have weights and sent the rest via Drop & Go, I'll need to fake it with C&D and say that all parcels are Small Parcels and weigh 750g
I really want to save as much as possible during the dispatch process so maybe paying a little more per parcel is my only option. I can't be the only one with similar problems?
I also want to get C&D sorted as it has the Export Labels with commodity codes etc and picking list as standard with it. Being in NI, if/when I'll need to export my order to the mainland having these labels pre-printed and filled in will also be a time save also.
My Items are various sizes and weights but 90% are small parcel under 1kg. I have imported all my 1 million SKU's into C&D but as explained not all have weights so unless I had a way of only using C&D for 100k+ SKU's that have weights and sent the rest via Drop & Go, I'll need to fake it with C&D and say that all parcels are Small Parcels and weigh 750g
I really want to save as much as possible during the dispatch process so maybe paying a little more per parcel is my only option. I can't be the only one with similar problems?
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