Best alternative to Royal Mail?

[sjackson1984]

Sorry if this is in the wrong section but I wasn’t sure where to post it.

A few years ago my Ltd company had an account with Royal Mail. We ended up owing them £12,000 which we repaid via a Tomlin Order. The final payment was in February so we now owe Royal Mail nothing.

When we set up the Tomlin Order, Royal Mail gave us access to a prepayment account where we could ring up and ‘add credit’ to our account and then buy postage up to the credit we had already added, however, now we have cleared our account they have blocked even our prepayment account.

This week I have approached Royal Mail because we are buying our postage through Click & Drop and want to pay for Royal Mail to collect our mail, but they’ve said they “will not reinstate or offer us any accounts due to our past trading history with them”.

So, we’ve got two choices...either suck it up and keep using click and drop meaning taking 10+ sacks of mail to the sorting office every day, or find an alternative.

We’ve looked into the likes of despatch bay but you have to box up all RM small parcels, pay for parcelforce to collect them for RM then collect from despatch bay which not only adds cost but also delays delivery.

Are there any other options?

Also, as an aside, are MyHermes really as bad as people make out?

EDIT to say we send mostly small parcels below 1KG.

 

[DontAsk]

Also, as an aside, are MyHermes really as bad as people make out?

Yes. They are currently even worse than ever.

I was expecting a parcel that, unfortunately, had an error in the address.

The chat bot is useless. The automated phone helpline will literally not take "no" for an answer, so I cannot get past the first question.

I went to the retailer who told me Hermes are completely unable/unwilling to redirect or return the parcel in the current conditions. They offered a refund but then backtracked as the order had already been processed and despatched (obviously).

Eventually a formal request for a refund, threatening to raise a credit card payment dispute and mentioning the distance selling regs, focused minds at the retailer and I now have a refund.

Avoid MyHerpes if at all possible.

 

[Mr D]

Yes there are alternatives. Usually costing more - My Hermes is the cheaper one but add costs for problems, royal mail you want to move away from - so its higher priced but usually quicker delivered options.
APC, DPD, UPS etc.

Is dropping sacks off at the depot that bad?

 

[sjackson1984]

Yes there are alternatives. Usually costing more - My Hermes is the cheaper one but add costs for problems, royal mail you want to move away from - so its higher priced but usually quicker delivered options.
APC, DPD, UPS etc.

Is dropping sacks off at the depot that bad?

I don’t mind paying more if it means an easier life obviously within reason. We use APC and DPD but not with small parcels as the costs are prohibitive.

My problem with taking sacks to Royal Mail is that at the moment it’s 10 sacks a day (each weighing 11KG). Coming up to Christmas it’ll be 20 - 40 sacks and I can’t fit that many in the car so it’d be 2-4 x 10 mile round trips. If we could pay the £900 to Royal Mail to collect our post, that’d be fine but they won’t allow us to even do that.

 

[Mr D]

I don’t mind paying more if it means an easier life obviously within reason. We use APC and DPD but not with small parcels as the costs are prohibitive.

My problem with taking sacks to Royal Mail is that at the moment it’s 10 sacks a day (each weighing 11KG). Coming up to Christmas it’ll be 20 - 40 sacks and I can’t fit that many in the car so it’d be 2-4 x 10 mile round trips.

Bigger car, a van even? Have managed 15 bags in a Renault megane.

Or pay the higher prices.

You could try royal mail every few months. We had a manager in the accounts section who kept refusing us due to previous company going under owing them a few thousand. Which of course never got paid because company dissolved. The staff we dealt with were fine, just Kevin who didn't want to give us an account.


Eventually got a credit account and not had too many problems. Took probably a year.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I think your biggest problem is the same that many online retailers have
The fear of charging for transport !
I recommend that you speak to your local APC for reliability or take a chance with Hermes yes they do have problems as @DontAsk has mentioned but you are getting it cheap !

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Is dropping sacks off at the depot that bad?

Pain in the ass Mr D
who wants to do that ?

 

[sjackson1984]

Bigger car, a van even? Have managed 15 bags in a Renault megane.

Or pay the higher prices.

You could try royal mail every few months. We had a manager in the accounts section who kept refusing us due to previous company going under owing them a few thousand. Which of course never got paid because company dissolved. The staff we dealt with were fine, just Kevin who didn't want to give us an account.


Eventually got a credit account and not had too many problems. Took probably a year.

Buying a new car or van isn’t really an option unfortunately. I will keep trying every few months though as you suggest. I did also consider emailing the ceo office as not allowing me to pay for their services (ie collections) is not clever business sense surely.

I think your biggest problem is the same that many online retailers have
The fear of charging for transport !
I recommend that you speak to your local APC for reliability or take a chance with Hermes yes they do have problems as @DontAsk has mentioned but you are getting it cheap !

The problem is a lot of our orders are below £10 so customers might pay £3 for postage but we already got a rate of £4.50 for local deliveries with APC but anything further afield is £7. Might definitely be worth chatting to them though and seeing if an increase of volume could equal better rates.

Definitely want to try and avoid Hermes if I can but as you say they are cheap and if Royal Mail really won’t play ball we might not have any other option.

 

[sjackson1984]

Pain in the ass Mr D
who wants to do that ?

To be fair, I know it sounds like me just being lazy but I’m mainly thinking of the run up to Christmas. It’s impractical for me to do 2 or 3 x 10 mile round trips to Royal Mail in order to drop off 20-40 sacks of post each day when I need to be spending the time producing the products people have ordered.

 

[Mr D]

Pain in the ass Mr D
who wants to do that ?

When alternative is higher cost or not getting collection it's an option.

 

[dotcomdude]

This week I have approached Royal Mail because we are buying our postage through Click & Drop and want to pay for Royal Mail to collect our mail, but they’ve said they “will not reinstate or offer us any accounts due to our past trading history with them”.

This is a left-field suggestion. Do you have a local business that trusts you, and would have an account with collection from your address? We recently changed the billing name and address on our RM credit account and they didn't seem to bat an eyelid.

You could protect them by paying all costs and giving them a deposit up front...

 

[AndyBowness]

Another left-field suggestion. Do you know anyone local with a van that would drop off the bags for you? If you were lucky it might even be someone that works near you but lives near the sorting office, they could get a few quid each day for going a few minutes out of their way to drop off the bags.

 

[Davek0974]

The man-with-a-van option i was just going to suggest

I would also avoid Hermes, I use DPD a fair bit and they are good, but i don't think anyone can beat Royal Mail. Customer services though try getting a refund for a lost delivery

 

[Paul Norman]

No one quite does the same thing as Royal Mail.

We have used DPD and DHL, however, and they have both proved to be good. But recently their prices have gone up a fair bit - probably still worth it, though.

The budget carriers are just that. Cheap. Will work 98% of the time. When it goes wrong you just have to refund the customer and move on. For many high volume businesses that model will work.

 

[Mr D]

One of my suppliers uses Hermes.

Checked the tracking this morning via the Hermes email I received a couple of days ago, to see that the parcel is being delivered today.
Only to see that there is a problem with the parcel and it should be on its way within 48 hours.

Considering yesterday it was at the depot I haven't a clue what problem could be.
But its annoying to have stuff delayed.

 

[chickenlady]

Whistl? They collect if your spend is +£20 I think (I've only read about their service). RM do the end delivery but you need to add a day or so to delivery.