Alternative to Royal Mail for Small Items

[anthonytaylor]

Hi guys,

We will be offering a service where customers send in scratched, unreadable discs and we will professionally repair and remove the vast majority, if not all, of scratches.

In a nutshell, the customer posts their discs to us, we repair them and then post them back.

The value of the discs, say if someone ships us 3 xbox 360 games could be £75-100, yet standard postal compensation only covers us for £41.
if they go 'missing'.

I looked into special delivery and it's £5 which is far too much given that we will be making only a few pounds per order.

It's even more uneconomical when you consider that a customer would need to send it this way to me to be 100% covered.

Do any of you know if RM offer a better compensation rate on 1st class delivery, or if there is another company out there who could offer insured delivery up to £100 ish?

Kind regards,
Anthony

 

[roydmoorian]

What is most important to you - the insurance when the delivery goes wrong, or a service which goes wrong much less often and gives you real time details of the last person / position of your goods often but offers less insurance ?

Quite frankly the Royal Mail provides excellent value for money but if you cannot accept a few "losses" then perhaps you should be charging more for your service or considering using a next-day tracked parcel service.

With Royal Mail make sure that you have a good return address on every letter / parcel which you are concerned about.

 

[puffin]

how about myhermes mate?
I use them for the items that are a bit heavier than 600g-700gish, and it is cheaper to use them, plus for me, they come at the same time every day(10.30am-11am), so i dont have to wait in all day.

 

[MrBob]

Normal postage is all that the DVD rental companies like Lovefilm use. Maybe see if they figures, possibly from a press release?

If users want to send in a few at a time, it might be worth offering a discount or offer combined a special delivery option?

 

[silvermusic]

Why are you assuming £5 is too much per order? If we're talking about the price of several games discs do you not think the customer would be prepared to pay that much extra on top of the repair service? As a customer I would.

As for CD/DVD size large letters you can't go far wrong with good old 1st class (small packet overseas) Royal Mail, I send thousands a year all around the world and the number lost is so small it doesn't even figure in my calculations.

Have you also checked if you're charging too little? I know there's a few High street names offering this service, Game (I think) and Cash converters.

 

[anthonytaylor]

Thanks for taking the time to reply guys

Our price will be higher than the high street due to the postage costs - however, you won't need to drive into town to your nearest Gamestation, Cash Converters etc.

I think we have two options here;

1) Use Royal Mail at low cost and accept a small proportion of losses
2) Use an enhanced service such as myhermes and hike up prices

Ultimately I think option 1 would be the best as the 2nd one would make getting a few discs repaired unecononmical!

 

[roydmoorian]

1) Use Royal Mail at low cost and accept a small proportion of losses
2) Use an enhanced service such as myhermes and hike up prices

Ultimately I think option 1 would be the best as the 2nd one would make getting a few discs repaired unecononmical!

That sounds like a sensible decision, but to get the absolute best from RM insist that your customers put a return address on everything they send to you and make sure that you do the same -The return address only needs to include the first line (i.e. house number & street) and the postcode.

 

[sysops]

2) Use an enhanced service such as myhermes and hike up prices

I wouldn't call myhermes and 'enhanced' service...

 

[anthonytaylor]

That sounds like a sensible decision, but to get the absolute best from RM insist that your customers put a return address on everything they send to you and make sure that you do the same -The return address only needs to include the first line (i.e. house number & street) and the postcode.

Good idea - I will do exactly that

 

[mikemsm999]

Try Fast Way Couriers fastwaycouriers.co.uk

They are a National Firm and do a Satchel that is massive and comes in at £3.95 + VAT. From memory I can not rememer if the insurance cover is £100 or £250 per bag, best thing is check their site.

As each area is a franchised your supporting a small business like yourself which is one of the main reason we have switched to them.

Hope that helps

Mike

 

[roydmoorian]

Before you consider forking out £100's on Fastway Pre-pay services please check here :- http://www.blagger.com/db4/company_id/3254/companyname/Fastway-Couriers.html

They seem to have a nack of awarding franchises to unsuitable candidates

 

[puffin]

i was reading this thread, and had posted earlier on.

I was interested in this fastway couriers but have been put a little off with them with that link.
I know of course every thing you do be it visit a hotel can have bad reviews etc.

I would like to minimise the cost I am paying to royal snail, and am trying to utilise myhermes more, I have a great person who collects my parcels from them, they come exactly on the dot same time each day etc, so no waiting in.

It would be good for me if somebody like myhermes offered a satchel of parcels.

Cheers