Hermes or Royal Mail?

[Lucan Unlordly]

Looking to send out some boxed Mugs which don't weigh a lot but come up as Small Parcel with Royal Mail starting at £2.95 and Hermes at £2.45.

I understand that Hermes deliveries can be tracked, an additional cost with Royal Mail, so on paper it's a no brainer but i've read a lot more negative press about poorly handles or lost deliveries with Hermes?

Can anyone put my mind at rest?

 

[obscure]

Can anyone put my mind at rest?

NO! Herpes seriously??????? Stay away!!!!!

 

[Ally Maxwell]

Have you got a really really unreliable alcoholic uncle ?

If so, put him on the list to do your deliveries before Hermes.

 

[Mr D]

Royal mail.

However 2nd class is taking 2 to 14 days prior to this week.
Now? Could be longer. 1st class is more expensive but does not appear to be suffering the same backlog. Still got one. Just shorter time.

Send it tracked if buyers are likely to ask on Tuesday where the parcel is.

If doing sufficient volume - for anyone else looking to do parcels - royal mail click & drop gives delivery confirmation on certain codes. Handy when people try claiming non receipt.

 

[alan1302]

Royal mail.

However 2nd class is taking 2 to 14 days prior to this week.
Now? Could be longer. 1st class is more expensive but does not appear to be suffering the same backlog. Still got one. Just shorter time.

Send it tracked if buyers are likely to ask on Tuesday where the parcel is.

If doing sufficient volume - for anyone else looking to do parcels - royal mail click & drop gives delivery confirmation on certain codes. Handy when people try claiming non receipt.

generally 2nd class gets there in no more then 2/3 days.

 

[Mr D]

generally 2nd class gets there in no more then 2/3 days.

Usually yes. When royal mail have a backlog they do not get there so quick.
My order page has dozens of orders this month that have taken longer than a week, several over 12 days. With lots of buyers telling me the order has not arrived in 3 days!
It's rather similar to the delays they had during the last lockdown.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I it is cheap and the goods are cheap I recommend Hermes or Yodel

 

[The Byre]

My Hermes became so unreliable that we began to call them My Herpes. One of our suppliers used them for drop-shipping and sent two large parcels to some poor bloke in Ullapool. He was in the garden mowing the lawn when one of the parcels flew over the hedge and landed in front of the mower. He bent to pick it up and the second hit him on the head.

He went out onto the street to see the My Herpes guy running down the road.

That was about ten years ago. Since then, they have new management, but the old bad reputation still sticks. In our area, My Herpes has been 100% reliable.

The Royal Mail has been getting more and more unreliable this year. Whole parcels and simple letters have gone missing and as above, delays are more or less the rule. They seem to think that the C19 madness is a brilliant excuse for sloppy and poor processes and gormless management.

 

[14Steve14]

generally 2nd class gets there in no more then 2/3 days.

I am currently being told by Royal Mail and Post Office staff to expect some delays up to 14 days, which will get worse as we get nearer to Christmas as the quantities of post increases. It is supposed to worse than at Easter. Post to some international countries is now not getting there before Christmas apparently.

 

[Mr D]

My Hermes became so unreliable that we began to call them My Herpes. One of our suppliers used them for drop-shipping and sent two large parcels to some poor bloke in Ullapool. He was in the garden mowing the lawn when one of the parcels flew over the hedge and landed in front of the mower. He bent to pick it up and the second hit him on the head.

He went out onto the street to see the My Herpes guy running down the road.

That was about ten years ago. Since then, they have new management, but the old bad reputation still sticks. In our area, My Herpes has been 100% reliable.

The Royal Mail has been getting more and more unreliable this year. Whole parcels and simple letters have gone missing and as above, delays are more or less the rule. They seem to think that the C19 madness is a brilliant excuse for sloppy and poor processes and gormless management.

And the people losing jobs with Hermes then go on to work at other couriers or indeed royal mail.

Or even better, food deliveries....

 

[Mr D]

I am currently being told by Royal Mail and Post Office staff to expect some delays up to 14 days, which will get worse as we get nearer to Christmas as the quantities of post increases. It is supposed to worse than at Easter. Post to some international countries is now not getting there before Christmas apparently.

They were doing 14 day timescale about 4 weeks ago. Dread to think what it will be like this week onwards.
Easter we had some stuff take 3 weeks.

Customers of course demand replacements, refunds etc.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Thanks all..........

I'm leaning towards Hermes for single items because there's a charity involved and 50p an item extra would be better sent their way. If people order 2 or more then Royal Mail becomes more viable, but 14 day delivery will, unless the situation improves, kill late orders.

 

[BillyFo]

Not really sure if all the Hermes-hate is justified.
They can be a little slow occasionally if you drop it off locally, as it's generally sub-contractors and not employees picking up and the last mile... but I've yet to have them lose a package.

Same can't be said for RM.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

And the people losing jobs with Hermes then go on to work at other couriers or indeed royal mail.

Or even better, food deliveries....

Very true Mr D A good multi drop driver will never be out of work and this has been the case for the last 30 years

 

[Mr D]

Not really sure if all the Hermes-hate is justified.
They can be a little slow occasionally if you drop it off locally, as it's generally sub-contractors and not employees picking up and the last mile... but I've yet to have them lose a package.

Same can't be said for RM.

Hermes have left packages under a bush, have left packages on top of the bins, have left one package middle of the driveway - lucky we pulled up soon after but the driver had no way of knowing if we were out shopping or on holiday. That's other people choosing Hermes, not us choosing them.

We use royal mail for most stuff under 20kg. Since many of our items are tracked for delivery have had a lot fewer INR claims and of those we get most get found when we remind the customer of when it was delivered.
Still items go missing - and most of the missing find their way back to us a few months later.

Lost items this year in total are probably under a quid.

 

[Alan]

My experience with Hermes is that they 'loose' packages.

When I asked my local Hermes delivery driver why, he said there is no controls in the depots, and 'freelance' staff often tuck packages behind doors etc out of the way, open them up and decide if they want to keep the items themselves.

My experience is that they also are very very reluctant to pay out compensation. Each time I have had to claim they claimed they had delivered, e.g. left at another address, but failed to actually provide an address that exists. Compensation only came after exceeding their 90 day investigation period, and then chasing with letter before action.

 

[DontAsk]

Looking to send out some boxed Mugs which don't weigh a lot but come up as Small Parcel with Royal Mail starting at £2.95 and Hermes at £2.45.

I understand that Hermes deliveries can be tracked, an additional cost with Royal Mail,

All RM small parcels have a parcel reference that can be used to track them. Just recently, for example, I was able to tell a customer that the parcel they were enquiring about had failed delivery (no one in) and was waiting for them to collect it or arrange re-delivery.

The failure rate with RM is so low it isn't worth bothering about and I never pay the extra for "signed for" when sending within the UK.

Hermes failure rate, on the other hand...

I was invited to leave a TrustPilot review for Hermes. It was very negative. They very quickly contacted me to see if they could help. The promised follow up never happened. Not even an apology for the poor service. Their chatbot is useless when you try to report a problem. Good luck finding a real contact number, they may even be breaking e-commerce lawsby not providing one.

Avoid Hermes like you would avoid Herpes.

 

[Steven Ayrshire]

Royal Mail offer a reference number on the receipt of any 1st and 2nd Class parcels so you can see if it has been delivered.
My experience of Hermes is not in their favour.

Most parcels I have had delivered by them over the last few months have been damaged in some way. Two were covered in red paint one day after the next.

Also if sending for collection by courier (in my area certainly) the parcels are left in the van overnight outside their home. So that doesn't fill me with confidence.

I would never consider them for any business deliveries.

 

[TBLZ]

Do you know that china, e.g. mugs, are not covered for compensation by Hermes? That's the case even if you pay for their insurance! I cannot post a link here as I don't have enough posts, but try Googling " Hermes non compensation items".

I would recommend that you also try Googling "Channel 4 Hermes auction". Basically, Hermes regularly "lose" items which then turn up at a shady auction house in Birmingham. We recently had 2 laptops "lost" by Hermes, and ended up significantly out of pocket.

We now use Parcelforce, which is not the same as Royal Mail, and we are very happy with the service.

 

[Paul Norman]

Personally, neither of the above.

However, that is just personal anecdote. Ultimately, whoever you use it depends on the bloke with the van doing the last mile.

And with Hermes (and most carriers, other than the post office), they are on less than minimum wage and might be having a bad day.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

UPDATE.

We went with Royal Mail in the end.

15 parcels despatched Monday & Tuesday. All trackable ones delivered within 2 days. Non trackable ones were being received on Thursday.

 

[paulears]

I've had two Royal Mail parcels - 1st class, signed for, taking a very long time in the last two weeks. One posted last Friday (2pm - local post office with 5pm collection - sorting office 1 mile away) that arrived this morning. That really not very good for a service that costs a fiver.