Any recommended shipping services

[Richard1989]

Hi all,

Myself and two others have set up an online store and have launched about a week ago now.

We have sent out items, boxed, bubble wrapped, but have already had customers contacting us that their parcel has arrived smashed / chipped upon delivery. We are primarily selling novelty mugs at the moment but it appears that our courier is not handling them very appropriately?

I wouldn't like to say who we are using as i am not sure if i am allowed to - but we pay around £2.39 per small package. We are looking to obviously keep the price as low as we can, but have enough quality of service to know that our products will not arrived broken.

Can anyone recommended a courier or have any personal experience with any couriers you have used without any problems?

 

[ecoleman]

Royal Mail

 

[Richard1989]

That is who i was thinking - its slightly more expensive but i would assume the quality of the service is better..

 

[ecoleman]

To be honest we don't send fragile stuff, but we loose very little and not had any complaints of damage as yet.

If you sent enough you can setup a Business PPI account which would cost you around £2.20 for up to 1Kg (physical size dependent) via Small Parcels 48. That's not recorded, which if you are selling via eBay I would recommend and will cost around £1 more. Selling through your own site you will find that most customers are quite honest and you can get away with non recorded deliveries.

We send everything out non recorded and have only lost 3-4 items this year and we send around 700-800 per month

 

[Richard1989]

Ahh that sounds better. We are not quite at that volume of sending items yet - but i think the second class royal mail small package was around 2.80 to send which is not too bad either..

Also yes it is from our own site so its not SO strict on tracking

 

[RedOnion]

Not sure how much difference it makes but are you packaging the mugs in ordinary boxes with bubble wrap, or using boxes that are made for posting mugs in?

 

[Richard1989]

Well they are being posted with "crush proof" boxes.. with bubble wrap in there as well.. Just small sized boxes really. There isn't really any room for moving around in the box with the bubble wrap and the size of the box

 

[RedOnion]

I would guess it's not the moving around in the box that causes them to break, more likely that the package has been knocked or hit while on its journey.

Mug boxes are generally double walled to give better protection, or what about polystyrene boxes?

Appreciate these type of boxes would cost more than your current boxes, but they might get them there in one piece.

 

[mtools]

as others have said, Royal Mail. They are head and shoulders above any other courier i've used in terms of price and quality of service. if you're sending over 2kg you'd need to look into alternatives, but for what you're sending a PPI account and using RM48 is ideal. you can also get RM48 Tracked or RM48 signed for (not tracked). i only ever get signed for on stuff that's a bit larger/more valuable i.e. over £50, though i'm sending 100's of parcels a month and have lost maybe 3-5 in a year. myhermes on the other hand...

 

[Richard1989]

@RedOnion yeah we are looking into the polystyrene boxes at the moment. I think we can get them for around the same price from our supplier and they are more of a snug fit.. but with the added shock protection i would assume polystyrene gives..

@mobilitytools .. your "on the other hand" is exactly who we have been using.. and since i posted this the number of delivered breakages has more than doubled.. As of when i posted this we had switched to royal mail and were going to see if there were others around. But judging from the replies - royal mail is definitely the one to go for.. Thanks all

 

[Festoon Lighting]

We had problems with Tuffnells so we now use UPS, parcels arrive on time and no more smashed lighting. It was a no brainer for us.

 

[tom92]

parcelmonkey / interparcel / parcel2go are all good for comparing lots of couriers in one and are often cheaper than royal mail
(1 has hermes one has yodel and the other offers pallet services for large items ) but i cant remember which is which

 

[Zade1975]

I think you need to look at your own procedures before blaming the courier,

Couriers carry the parcel not what is inside it to them everything is a box, you can put fragile tape on the box but in my experience has no effect. (yes in an ideal world they would give every parcel the love and attention it deserves but they don't because WE the consumer drive down price continually wanting a cheaper price hence they have to carry more parcels and less care gets taken)

You need to pack your parcel knowing that it WILL be kicked, chucked, stacked on top of, and dropped numerous times before it gets to your customer,

If your cups are getting chipped then they are to close to the edge of the box even with bubble wrap, so you need to experiment with a bigger box size and more void fill to keep the cup away from the outer faces of the box,

As for couriers I would also say RM will be your best option as I'm guessing the majority of orders will be going to domestic properties and as most people will be out at work during the day (so deliveries will be missed) it will be easier for them to collect/rearrange delivery through the RM than most other couriers