Royal Mail Alternative

[lavster]

Hi we’ve lost all faith in Royal Mail as of the last week. Hundreds of items backlogged and taking over a week to deliver 1st class signed for services. I’ve asked on the amazon forums and seems we are by no means the only ones. Does anyone know of another large letter small parcel service?

 

[Minuteman Press]

We moved away from Royal Mail eight years ago due to 15% delivery failure rates - only use courier now. Meet with a few local couriers, follow-up references and don't go with the cheapest.

 

[lavster]

Whistl seem to be the only courier I can find that deal with Large Letters, any experience?

 

[Bushman]

I could be wrong but i think Whistl use the Royal Mail to deliver their mail, so I'm not sure how much better they would be.

 

[LPB 123]

I could be wrong but i think Whistl use the Royal Mail to deliver their mail, so I'm not sure how much better they would be.

Yes, you are correct Whistl use Royal Mail for large letter and small parcels and they use Yodel for larger parcels.

OP, there really is no competition with Royal Mail for large letters size. For small parcels price wise you have Hermes, but they offer a worse service in my opinion.

Is the backlog you're referring to over the last week due to the snow? We had large delays too but this was the same with all carriers.

 

[Mr D]

You can use whatever carrier you want, couriers will tend to be a LOT more expensive than RM for outer edges of the UK and for large letters. Willing to put your prices up enough to have the buyers pay for the courier service, plus cost of return if buyer isn't in / doesn't collect?

Don't forget its also Mothers Day on Sunday, lots of people using postal services while there is a backlog from the weather. Just unusual set of circumstances.
And your problems are found with couriers just as much this week.

 

[pelparc]

Strange. Royal Mail delivered all our parcels during the snow and where the only collection and delivery service that actually came out to us (apart form 1 day) for almost a week. APC, FedEx, DPD, UPS, Hermes never came out to us to deliver parcels. We hardly ever have a problem with Royal Mail and actually find couriers a complete expensive pain in the a***. The biggest issue we find is that customers actually fill their addresses in wrong (not helped with auto-fill on browsers). This issue gets picked up when entering the address into the courier booking system but when using Royal Mail just gets copied as it is and then posted.

 

[Scottishgifts4u]

Maybe we're lucky but in 13 years have never had an item lost in the UK. That's probably jinxed us now but with that sort of record we'd be crazy to move.

Besides we don't send out a lot per day and couriers couldn't come near the price.