How do you ship your orders? Need advice

[freddo]

Hi all,

I run a small online business. I have around 20-30 packages everyday that i need to send out to the UK and Europe.

Currently I am going into the post office (royalmail) with all my orders and getting them to price up and send there. Surely there must be a quicker, more efficient way of getting my orders out. I have seen franking machines but i don't think i am selling enough to get one of those yet.

How does everyone send/print packing slips/get their stamps? What's the quickest way. Any general shipping advice is much much appreciated, i am totally new to this as you can probably tell. Thanks in advance.

 

[deniser]

Royal Mail tracked with free collection. No need to weigh or frank as you pay a fixed rate per parcel based on the average weight.

 

[Rhyl Lightworks]

Are you using Royal Mail online? If not, get this facility.

Barrie

 

[freddo]

Thanks for the replies. We currently use royal mail first class. Our weights/ sizes vary from large letters to 1kg packets but generally they are around 250grams.

Where do you get the recorded stamps from? Do you just print them off online? Or am i missing something?

Thanks so far

 

[KateCB]

Open a business account with ROyal Mail - call them. Tell them that you will be sending around 5000 parcels a year, perhaps more (they never check whether its more than this or less but insist on 5000 when you set it all up) and they will set you up with the online facility where you upload your parcels, weights etc on a daily basis.

They provide you with a rubber stamp to put on your parcels for 1st class/2nd class stamps, they provide the recorded delivery/international delivery lables, bags, posting dockets etc, and you can either take everything to your local Post office, or pay to have it collected from you.

You complete all the forms online, print them out and bob's your uncle!
You are billed at the end of the month and it is paid by Direct Debit,. The Postal charges are lower than just going to the Post office and paying the standard rate, so it is worth doing if you are sending that many parcels.

Hope that helps!

 

[jhardy2008]

fedex.com help me to ship my orders in quick times. You can also trace Track a Shipment.

 

[ShortCouture]

Definitely talk to the Royal Mail. They have differernt solutions for diff size businesses. If your postage is less than £5k pa you can use SmartStamp - an easy to use program - you print off correct postage for each parcel. Can do address labels too.

If more than £5k - sounds like yours is - then yes a franking machine and you get discounted postage. But talk to them.

 

[kulture]

No, not a franking machine. Do as KateCB suggested. Open a PPI account and the Royal mail will supply all the stationary. The postal rates are the same as for the franking machine, and you get to pay in arrears.

 

[Jeff FV]

Another vote to do as Kate says.

We got a Royal Mail online business account about a year ago and its brilliant - we save money & time (luckily we have a Royal Mail sorting office 2 mins from us where we can drop off our bags - no more queuing!)

And from what you've said of your post - large letters & packets around 1Kg you probably won't be able to send any cheaper than Royal Mail Packet post.

Jeff

 

[BoxLimited]

we use DPD, they give the customer a one hour timed delivery slot the next day for us.

They even get a text confirmation and an email confirmation. (but that's more to do with our systems than theirs!)

Most of our packages are 2.5 KG - 3 KG as you'd expect, but we too have a fixed price per consignment.

They do us proud.

 

[KateCB]

Just to add to the Royal Mail account - you don't have to drop off at a sorting office - any post office will accept your bagged mail providing you have printed out the correct paperwork, which is easy and you do whether it is collected from you (I think I said this costs around £300 ish a year? Less than £1 a day I think anyway, cheaper than parking, time and fuel!) - you get an end of month invoice paid by Direct debit.

 

[E-Commerce]

I currently ship 300 ebay items a week.

The stamps are printed from paypal.

Some items are heavy, so they get collected by parcelforce, the rest I take to the post office. Some items are so heavy and big they need to go on a pallet and then collected by palletline.

Going to the postoffice is a time waster, but you can get them to collect your items once you have a large amount of orders per day/week.

If you are sending your items by recorded delivery you have to wait in the que unfortunately, if not you can drop off your items and go.