Royal Mail Options

[startuptrader]

I'm after some opinions on the best Royal Mail service to use and see how some of you good people get round the problems I face.
Let me give you some background info...

I originally intended to sell my products via my website to a fairly specialist market, however due to the lack of advertising budget, the traffic and sales through the website would have meant going bust instantly if I didn't not explore other avenues.
I decided eBay was the way to go, however this has slashed profit margins that were not originally planned for.
Now this is all by the by, sales are good on eBay and if i can keep going my advertising budget will grow. However it seems eBay is becoming a place where sellers are easy targets unless sending items via a recorded method.

This small business isn't my main source of income at the moment and I work 6 days a week else where so I pack orders for the day in the evening, use royal mails online postage system to print and buy postage, and drop them in to the local sorting office on the way to work the following morning. This suits me fine and works very well, however I have now found that this isn't a method that you can claim on without proof of postage. Buyers on eBay know this and We seem to be getting the odd scam artist.
If I'm going to have to get proof of postage for every item to cover myself, then I could only dispatch on certain day (when I have time to go to the post office) and in turn I will loose customers as the turn around at present is very quick using my method, and would suffer drastically if anything changed.
Any recorded method purchased online still requires dropping to a post office anyway so this defeats the object of saving time.

What do you guys recommend?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jayser100]

The problem you face is that, in order to get Royal Mail really interested in discounts your volume needs to be excellent. Packetpost gives you significant discounts but the criteria is around 500 packets a month. Now, others have said you can be economical with the truth and get Packet Post - and, once set up, they don't really check to make sure you are complying with their minimum requirements. However, as a start-up you may find it hard to get their attention and you would certainly have to tell lots of fibs to get a Packet Post account.

Steer clear of franking. it looks like the prices are better but the cost of top-ups, printer cartridges and monthly fees make it a real pain and very often not cheaper at all. Sometimes you might save some money if you sell quite a lot of product but if you do that, Packet Post is infinitely better.

I think all you can really do keep your postal costs to the minimum by making sure you spend as little as possible on bags, labels etc. and then just factor the postage into your asking price. As for Recorded Delivery, well yes you get the odd customer who pretends they haven't received goods in order to get a second one but it is actually rarer than you might think and personally I reckon after the recent RM price hikes you are better off not doing it unless the items you send out are quite valuable. Remember, Recorded Delivery items cannot be tracked until the customer has signed for them, and so if they do go missing you probably won't get them back anyway. All you can do is go through the tedious RM form filling process. RM also recently removed the electronic reproduction of the recipient's signature on their Track and Trace internet page, which makes it even more useless because you can't even prove to a customer you know they personally signed for it anymore.

 

[rps199]

We have a PPI account with Royal Mail and we also suffer with the same problem you mention on eBay. We had an item worth £70 go missing which was sent recorded delivery, I spoke to Royal Mail about the claim process and was told that it was very unlikely the claim would be successful - even though I had proof of postage. Apparently Royal Mail changed the T&C's in January??

Generally we write off the "lost" stuff which is low value anyway, anything worth a bit more we send recorded or special delivery. (if margin permits!)

Somebody suggested putting a sticker on the package saying "Royal Mail Tracked." apparently this has help cut this type of problem.

 

[VikG]

Recorded delivery is useless in my opinion. Only 60-70% of our recorded delivery get picked up as signed. Otherwise the postman just puts through the letter box without a signature. If you have a lot of high value you could go for Tracked.

 

[furman]

I thought Recorded delivery items were still covered for compensation if they go missing, not the other stuff for PPI.

I have had a few issues with customers not receiving their goods and have started using recorded more, I have not had any recorded go missing yet. Most missing items are at the depot, the customer never bothers to check and the postman does not leave a card, I usually get the item back but not always.

I used the Royal Mail tracked page to compare costs, my items are mostly low value and I wouldn't send the minimum required by Tracked, not worth it on my product lines.

 

[kulture]

For any business post, unless TRACKED (and recorded is not tracked) you can no longer claim for loss or damage.

 

[a_5mith]

I was employed by someone who ran a similar company to yours, again within eBay, but wanted his own website (hence why I was there). The way he ran his operations seemed to work quite well, at about 3pm he would print off all his orders and package them up. His local post office would give him a roll of both Standard Delivery stickers and Recorded Delivery stickers. (Orange and Purple ones), he would then attach the invoice to the package, then put either the orange or the purple sticker on, according to how much the item was worth, anything over £40 would be sent T&C'd.

Anything going simply by first class, he would write a 1 in the corner to signify first class post. He would then take all of his post to the post office who would basically sort everything out for him. He would then pay them what he owed every Friday. The trouble with doing it online, is you risk paying more than you need to in postage. If you've paid too much online, then you're not getting it back. At least if you take it to the PO and they sort out the weight and the delivery, then you pay exactly what is required.

If you have any specific post office questions, I am very good friends of someone who owns a Post Office in Derby who would be more than happy to answer any questions you might have. If you want to PM them then you can. (I think)