Best Postage Solutions For Small E-Commerce Store Selling UK & Overseas

[Mr D]

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?

So sounds like you need to estimate for some, weighing where you think its needed.
Its only as you say 150+ orders.

 

[Sparetoolparts]

Yes, I actually have my excel sheet open ATM and am assigning everything Small Parcel size and weight of 750g. When packing the orders, I'll keep an eye out for products over that weight and leave them to one side and larger than small Parcel, to be updated and the correct label generated for future orders!

I don't see any other way around this. The 750g and Small Parcel setup should cover 90% of may orders anyway.

If anyone has a better solution I would love to hear it

 

[Mr D]

Yes, I actually have my excel sheet open ATM and am assigning everything Small Parcel size and weight of 750g. When packing the orders, I'll keep an eye out for products over that weight and leave them to one side and larger than small Parcel, to be updated and the correct label generated for future orders!

I don't see any other way around this. The 750g and Small Parcel setup should cover 90% of may orders anyway.

If anyone has a better solution I would love to hear it

Small and medium parcels are the same size. Same cost too.
Limit under C&D is considerable size.

 

[GuyMor]

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.

Possibly the worst advice given on UKBF from its inception.

 

[Charlie Gr]

As General advice - if the parcel is less than 2 kgs and sending it within UK (aka Domestic) - go with Royal Mail, no one can beat it, in price or quality. For International (even europe) RM might not be a good option.

For international, go with a logistics partner, who can give you great rates (both import and exports) and even more importantly someone who can support you and are a call away. Remember - 2-5 parcels in every 100 - can get stuck at one or the other place in the journey. So, if you are left on your own, it will eat up your valuable time for sales. You can negotiate for good rates in many cases.

 

[Sparetoolparts]

@Mr D When using Click & Drop do you put your Signed For items in the same bag as 1st/2nd class post?

I'm also still confused by the difference between STL and BPL

I know STL stands for- Business Mail Unsorted 2nd Class
and
I know BPL stands for - 1st and 2nd Class Account

But I have no actual idea what it means and what affect choosing either will have on my costs etc.

 

[Mr D]

@Mr D When using Click & Drop do you put your Signed For items in the same bag as 1st/2nd class post?

I'm also still confused by the difference between STL and BPL

I know STL stands for- Business Mail Unsorted 2nd Class
and
I know BPL stands for - 1st and 2nd Class Account

But I have no actual idea what it means and what affect choosing either will have on my costs etc.

The only signed for I use these days is special delivery which goes in its own sack.

My account manager told me to use crl for large letter and parcels, bpl for letter.
Not been told to use stl.
Have not spoken to him in about 3 weeks though.

Crl also gives us tracked delivery - handy when a customer claims not received. And I always check non delivery a few days later and lo it has arrived - quick invoice through PayPal and refunded money paid back to us.

 

[Sparetoolparts]

How do you contact your account manager?

I've never been contacted by anyone from RM since I got C&G setup

 

[Mr D]

How do you contact your account manager?

I've never been contacted by anyone from RM since I got C&G setup

Usually he rings me. Got a number on a letter somewhere in my files in storage.
Couple of times a year he gets in touch.

 

[Sparetoolparts]

ok

So been speaking to Click & Drop again

I can bulk update allparcel which doesn't have a weight and assign it a weight there and then, the down side is, this will over-write the products that currently have a weight and apply an average weight to everything in that batch :-(

I have also spoke with OBA accounts, I don't have an account manager but they have confirmed that If I pay more postage than needed I'll not get flagged up, despite what C&D said previously

So at least I have a way forward now

 

[Mr D]

As and when you do get weights worked out for products then you can override the current settings.
One by one.

 

[Greg Thomas]

Have you tried click and drop via RM depending on volume

 

[OnePatch]

Visit companies like inter parcel, parcel monkey, wedelivertheworld etc. They will give you small amount of prices per parcel for international and as well in nation wise. For your UK stuff the best service depends on what you want.

 

[Michael Beaumont]

DespatchBay have been around for over a decade now and offer the best rates I've seen for RM, DPD & DHL parcels and packets to the UK and overseas. You can get a trial of 25 credits (equivalent to £25) using the trial code https://despatchbay.com/start/1GD7G
They have a download and API to integrate into most platforms and the documentation to write your own if you wish.

I recently asked RM for a review and the prices were nearly the same but you had to add a fuel surcharge of 9% on top so going direct can be more expensive.

 

[Countrymun]

This is interesting. We have been using RM click and drop and printing labels.
Thought about OBA but our parcels range in weight from 85g to about 750g average and I thought we would have to pay based on heaviest so great to know you take the average weight. Since many more are 85g I am wondering if you can have separate consignments to avoid paying average weight when most are the light 85g weight?
We have used pacel2go in the past for larger items but usually we are within 2kg so use RM for international. It is getting pretty expensive - especially now they have introduced a zone 3 just for USA.

 

[Accounting Controls]

Hi
I have used a small company called Caribou - they come and collect your post and have several different options for different sized parcels. They have a big account with Royal Mail, XPD, Yodel etc so you can benefit from the discounts they receive. They have international rates too. Their e-platform allows you to integrate your postage addresses and link with ebay and amazon sites so you don't have to type in your addresses manually. They have worked well for me in the past.
Jane

 

[MichelleB-UK]

We use Zenstores for shipping management which automatically sends data to Royal Mail OBA. 99% of what we send goes via Royal Mail to UK / Europe but we do need to find a new option for US shipping which has become really expensive since covid (due to lack of planes flying)

 

[kjay]

We use RM started off going to the post office, then moved to a drop off service and now we have a daily collection, it’s by far the best service for under 1kg and I believe the cheapest. We do tracked 48 on all our parcels and have only had a few go missing at the depot which you can claim for. We ship world wide with them it’s up to the customer if they want to pay postage, depends on how badly they want your product.
Great service and if you get good collection posties they really look after you.

 

[japancool]

I would recommend getmyparcel.com - brilliant service, brillant rates
Only one of the few - who give - Service (lots of info / advise in person)+ good rates

Would that be because you work for them?

 

[Mr D]

I would recommend getmyparcel.com - brilliant service, brillant rates
Only one of the few - who give - Service (lots of info / advise in person)+ good rates

An industry where only a few give service?
Darn, must get into the consultant business, make a killing with teaching businesses how to provide service in that industry.

Really its often a bad idea to suggest an industry is so bad only one or a few provide good service. It suggests the industry is pretty bad and by implication therefore the very company being promoted. Don't go negative in an advert, brush past negatives and focus on positives.
Top achiever, industry leader, considerable market share, award winner (or runner up counts too) and so on.

Oh and the website could do with being rewritten too. Aimed at schoolkids, it works. Professional image? Not so much.