Alternatives to Royal Mail during Postal Strikes

[Richard Cole]

After closing my high street retail shops a couple of months ago I am looking to off load my remaining stock via Ebay, its mainly low value giftware and accessories which would generally be sent as RM small parcel. With all the recent Royal Mail strikes and the possibility of more in the run up to Christmas, I know they have just cancelled strikes for the next two weeks but I want to have a back up plan in case of further disruption. I have looked at Parcel2Go which initially looked good but the reviews on Trustpilot look terrible, has anyone got any experience of them or suggestions to use a similar priced service to RM that is reliable?

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Richard I recommend that you get an account with one of the Parcel carriers.
Fedex , Yodel, DPD ect if you were going to be continuing indefinitely

You will always find bad reviews that's just the nature of this industry with hundreds of thousands of transactions every day on such low margins with tight deadlines!

One thing that I would avoid are the parcel resellers because when something goes wrong your not dealing directly with the carrier .

Looking at what your doing it does not look lke a long-term plan so I would say just stay with RM and work around the strikes

 

[japancool]

After closing my high street retail shops a couple of months ago I am looking to off load my remaining stock via Ebay, its mainly low value giftware and accessories which would generally be sent as RM small parcel. With all the recent Royal Mail strikes and the possibility of more in the run up to Christmas, I know they have just cancelled strikes for the next two weeks but I want to have a back up plan in case of further disruption. I have looked at Parcel2Go which initially looked good but the reviews on Trustpilot look terrible, has anyone got any experience of them or suggestions to use a similar priced service to RM that is reliable?

Parcel2go is just an aggregator. They resell the services of the other parcel carriers, so when you book through them, you get a choice of which carrier to use, e.g. Royal Mail, DHL, Yodel etc. They're only as good as the carriers they use, no better, not particularly worse.

 

[Richard Cole]

Thanks for the replies,

Jeremy I will take a look at setting up an account with a alternative carrier, although I live in a rural area and my need might range from zero parcels a day to 10 or more. I was hoping to utilise one of the drop off points nearby, I know Evri do it and also Parcel2Go so I can take parcels to a nearby shop, 3 miles away which would be more convenient for me, not checked Yodel yet so will compare their service and prices and see if they have any local collection points nearby.

 

[japancool]

I know Evri do it

Try not to use Evri if you can help it, not if you want to keep your customers happy.

 

[Richard Cole]

Try not to use Evri if you can help it, not if you want to keep your customers happy.

That's my worry, I've heard so many bad reviews, although personally never had a problem with deliveries I have received through Evri, Yodel seem even worse and DPD and Fedex I suspect will be too expensive for my products, I normally pay around £3.85 - £5.95 for my parcels. Might just stick with RM and hope that there won't be any further strikes before Xmas!

 

[Talay]

There is no real difference between DPD and Royal Mail pricing.

We do outbound and inbound 3rd party collections and DPD are fractionally ahead of Royal Mail on service.