Couriers - What courier/s do you use?

[puffin]

Hi
I am in the process of sorting out my whole posting costing.
As it is costing too much.

I made a thread a month ago RE: Royal mail prices have gone up, and took up some valid points and have been working to keeping the costs down.

I'm wanting to know what couriers people use.

Is there any out there, that I can pay £x,000 for the whole year sort of thing...?

Or pay per big bag?


Thanks

Regards

 

[KateCB]

Depend on what colume, size and weight you are sending as to which courier is most cost effective - none that I know of do a fixed price annual contract or 'bag rate' most work on the number of parcels per week, and can be sqeezed on price when you are hitting or exceeding that number.

We use apc couriers, our local number is 01709 369369, and I am sure they will be able to put you in touch with your local depot for pricing; we use them for parcel that we want delivered NWD, from 1kg to 30kg - anything under 1kg and we use Royal mail anyway, as with a business account it is cheaper than going to the Post Office and paying on the day.

 

[puffin]

Depend on what colume, size and weight you are sending as to which courier is most cost effective - none that I know of do a fixed price annual contract or 'bag rate' most work on the number of parcels per week, and can be sqeezed on price when you are hitting or exceeding that number.

We use apc couriers, our local number is 01709 369369, and I am sure they will be able to put you in touch with your local depot for pricing; we use them for parcel that we want delivered NWD, from 1kg to 30kg - anything under 1kg and we use Royal mail anyway, as with a business account it is cheaper than going to the Post Office and paying on the day.

Could you tell me more about the royal mail business account.

Had a look on their site unless I'm looking in the wrong places it seems pretty vague.

Thanks

Regards

 

[Curious]

APC Couriers - absolutely brilliant. Although as mentioned before, if you're sending light/small packages RM will prob be your best bet by quite a bit.

 

[Carpet Bags]

I use Parcel2go. Do not take it as an advertisement because it is not. I am really pleased with their service.

Basically you use DHL, FedEx and others, only twice cheaper than directly.

 

[puffin]

Having spoken to a nice chap at royal mail, the business team is giving me a call tomorrow regarding the packet post service.

70p cheaper than over the counter at worst, and could go even cheaper depending on amount.

Seems promising..

 

[KateCB]

Sorry about that - I went away, but glad you got in touch with RM about the business account, You will need postal scales (not cheap, but last forever!) as you must weigh everything; if you are sending a lot of parcels, you can pay to have them collected on a daily basis, its an annual fee of around £300 I think, and it can be worth it is you have a lot of parcels, and if you don't want to lose time by going to the post office, standing in line and coming back etc!

All the paperwork is done online as you send out, invoicing is monthly, they provide the recorded delivery/special delivery/bags. document wallets etc, so all in all it works out well. You can have international added to your account too, parcels are a bit tricker, hence us using a courier.

Agree with Curious - been with APC for 7 years - stunning service.

 

[roydmoorian]

I use Parcel2go. Do not take it as an advertisement because it is not. I am really pleased with their service.

Basically you use DHL, FedEx and others, only twice cheaper than directly.

If you want Online Courier rates but with personal service when the rare but inevitable problem occurs have a look at our (very basic) website and give us a call

 

[puffin]

Sorry about that - I went away, but glad you got in touch with RM about the business account, You will need postal scales (not cheap, but last forever!) as you must weigh everything; if you are sending a lot of parcels, you can pay to have them collected on a daily basis, its an annual fee of around £300 I think, and it can be worth it is you have a lot of parcels, and if you don't want to lose time by going to the post office, standing in line and coming back etc!

All the paperwork is done online as you send out, invoicing is monthly, they provide the recorded delivery/special delivery/bags. document wallets etc, so all in all it works out well. You can have international added to your account too, parcels are a bit tricker, hence us using a courier.

Agree with Curious - been with APC for 7 years - stunning service.

Thanks Kate for that.

I probably wouldn't pay for the collection service, either my local or sorting office I can find time to drop it off.

 

[Jeff FV]

RM about the business account, You will need postal scales (not cheap, but last forever!) as you must weigh everything;

Using the packet post system (Royal Mail Online Business account) you don't need to weigh everything - the cost is based on the average weight in the sack - basically you weigh your bag of post and divide by the number of packets and you pay based on this. The price bands are pretty wide - use a portable electronic scale for about £4 from ebay and this does the trick.

Its a great system - saves us both time & money.

Jeff

 

[smo]

Sorry about that - I went away, but glad you got in touch with RM about the business account, You will need postal scales (not cheap, but last forever!) as you must weigh everything; if you are sending a lot of parcels, you can pay to have them collected on a daily basis, its an annual fee of around £300 I think, and it can be worth it is you have a lot of parcels, and if you don't want to lose time by going to the post office, standing in line and coming back etc!

All the paperwork is done online as you send out, invoicing is monthly, they provide the recorded delivery/special delivery/bags. document wallets etc, so all in all it works out well. You can have international added to your account too, parcels are a bit tricker, hence us using a courier.

Agree with Curious - been with APC for 7 years - stunning service.

Weight is average on the bag/no of parcels, you can jiggle it a lot to fit the weight bands

Collection on a daily basis at a set time is free if you spend more than 15000 a year with them.

The OBA (business account) can cover anything, packets, letters, overseas, specials and bulk mailings - we have all these on our account.

 

[ian-d]

I personally don't use Royal Mail for anything but a few light packages abroad, as no one can compete with them for that. For everything else I'd not use Royal Mail, their service just gets worse and worse; Amazon use them and are taking one hell of a beating at the moment for late deliveries etc.

I've used almost all couriers in my time, definately some to avoid like Parcelforce, TNT and Citylink, but some worthwhiles including Interlink, APC and UPS.

My business moved from UPS to Interlink for the majority of deliveries last year and haven't looked back, good service and very competitive prices if you are sending at least a few parcels a day, plus they offer envelope/bags for smaller items with cheaper costs. If anyone wants Interlink to contact them about a possible arrangement, send me a PM and I'll get my Interlink contact to get in touch, I've recommend a few businesses to them (I don't gain from it).

 

[Amelixuk]

We use an online service called Parcel Monkey www.parcelmonkey.co.uk

 

[gibby]

We currently use Interlink & they seem to be better than all the others we have tried. The slight issue is watching them on invoices as a few extra charges keep cropping up.

G

 

[Carpet Bags]

It looks like I face new challenge...
When you come to one of DHL or FedEx offices directly, the price is twice higher than the same services by Parcel2Go

But Parcel2Go is just a middleman and they just direct DHL, FedEx or others to your address.

The problem is - I don't have an address where mail can be collected from in working time and working days.

Will appreciate any suggestion. Thank you!

 

[roydmoorian]

It looks like I face new challenge...
When you come to one of DHL or FedEx offices directly, the price is twice higher than the same services by Parcel2Go

But Parcel2Go is just a middleman and they just direct DHL, FedEx or others to your address.

The problem is - I don't have an address where mail can be collected from in working time and working days.

Will appreciate any suggestion. Thank you!

If you want Online Courier rates but with personal service when the rare but inevitable problem occurs have a look at our (very basic) website and give us a call

What you need is a small scale fulfillment operation to store and then pack & dispatch your goods. We do that for a couple of businesses and have some spare capacity.

 

[APC Nexday Overnite Ltd]

Is there any out there, that I can pay £x,000 for the whole year sort of thing...?

Be careful about taking this route I wouldn't personally pay any company up front for a whole year if you do not know as to what their service will be like.

You also don't know how big you will be in 3, 6, 9 months time! If you decided to go with a courier for a year and paid up front, you then don't like them etc you may have been able to get a better courier service and for a cheaper price.

If you're going to decide on a courier make sure you pick the right one. If you can get five overnight parcel couriers get them all to deliver a parcel on their standard service (free of charge is possible).
Check their invoicing, surcharges, Proof of delivery availability (some even charge!), collection service and most importantly the actual delivery service.

Also why not get an account with a courier where you pay 30 days from invoice? surely this will be better for your cashflow.

 

[Carpet Bags]

What you need is a small scale fulfillment operation to store and then pack & dispatch your goods. We do that for a couple of businesses and have some spare capacity.

Well, it is definitely what I do NOT need.

I need International operator, that locates in London and to whom I can bring my parcels for different countries once-twice a week (or when I need) at 8 am or 8 pm or Saturday. I need to be able to get a quote by Internet before I send stuff and also I do not need to have any obligations like for example 100 parcels per month or anything like this.

But as I understand it is impossible.

 

[Carpet Bags]

Just got a reply from Parcel2Go - I can pay with them but bring my parcel to deport only for UK national services and only with DHL.

Not much but half of the problem solved