Which parcel delivery company should I use

[wajidm]

Hi Guys,

I am about to start online ecommerce business and hoping to sell leather goods like belts and wallets bags etc. Considering the initial days the selling figure wont be so huge say about 15 to 25 items a week I am predicting. Which company would be best to go for pick up and the parcel and delivery to the end customer. I am looking at hermes , interlink express and others . Will be great if someone can assist me to choose one a parcel carrier. I am a one man company and cannot afford business accounts with them so trying to keep the cost affordable for my startup.

Thanks

 

[Paul Norman]

Avoid all the budget carriers. To be honest, with those kind of products, you could do much worse than using Royal Mail - at the lighter/smaller end they are often the cheapest and they do tend to get the parcels there.

Hermes/Yodel/Collect Plus - great if you want to lose some of your customers from time to time.

DPD/DHL - excellent.

 

[Granulr]

You should call them all up and see what deal you can get from each carrier. And stick to the main companies:

Royal Mail
DPD
DHL

A number of our clients now have accounts with all three companies and use a shipping matrix to see which is the cheapest depending on weight and volume for each parcel. They also play all three companies off each other to lower the prices down every other month. It seems to work well.

 

[maxfox44]

Having used Hermes for a while, I'd echo above. I now only use them for indestructible/cheap/slow items or as a last resort. It is nice to be able to drop stuff off at the shop and their online booking with paypal payments is handy. But you are at the mercy of self-employed and lowly paid people at the business end unfortunately. Which makes it all a bit hit and miss.

 

[moo-tique]

I'd happily recommend InterLink Express - used them for a while now and ultra reliable. Call them up, provide them with some details, and they will come back to you with business rates. Their online portal for booking and arranging collections is simple to use too!

 

[kulture]

I also suggest the Royal Mail for any item under 2Kg. They are by far the cheapest AND the most reliable.

 

[moo-tique]

I also suggest the Royal Mail for any item under 2Kg. They are by far the cheapest AND the most reliable.

Yes, we use them too for our smaller/medium sized parcels, and found them to be very good.

 

[Granulr]

The clients we work with use them as a tier, so anything <2kg and not expensive would go Royal Mail, then anything that is over £X would go either DPD or DHL depending who was the cheapest at the time for the destination.

It may work out cheaper to get a contract with 2+ companies, which could save you a fortune in postage costs.

 

[IanG]

Ditto RM, <2kg 1st class £3.30 and over 90% are there next day.

 

[wajidm]

Brillant! guys. You have been a great help. What is perceive is that < 2kg go for royal mail and anything above is ether DPD or Interlink.

One more thing, would you recommend setting up a contract with them right from day one ? If yes, do they tie you up for a minimum period OR first assess the sales coming to the my store and then think of a contract.

 

[Abe Choi]

Hey Wajidm,

On Royal Mail you can go down either path as you will most likely end up physically at the post office. Let me explain.

1. Sign up for a Royal Mail Online Business Account (OBA) or Dispatch Manager Online (DMO). You will go through the initial vetting process. They will ask you about shipping forecast. Given the volumes you think you will get, if you get approved you will get the standard business rates which are cheaper than over the counter prices. However given your volumes are small you will most likely have to walk it over to the post office still. In summary, OBA or DMO access allows you to have business prices and you can create pdf shipping labels directly from DMO. You can get free shipping labels from RM too, which saves cash instead of using integrated A4 which wastes paper, ink and time folding invoices into the package.

2. You dont sign up and/or don't get approved to OBA and/or DMO. You will pay a little extra until your volumes pass Royal Mail's minimum account threshold. You still need to go to post office to pay and drop off your parcels.

One bit of advice, given you have smaller items, try to ensure you are always at the large letter size format. This will be the cheapest way for you start and ensure you have good margins from the beginning.

If you don't get approved by RM and still want business rates, I got a solution for you in the link below. Let me know if you need more info.

 

[Raw Rob]

If you don't have enough volume to get an account direct with a courier straight away you can use sites like www.interparcel.com and www.p4d.co.uk who act as brokers for the couriers.

 

[ukgpf]

Hi Guys,

I am about to start online ecommerce business and hoping to sell leather goods like belts and wallets bags etc. Considering the initial days the selling figure wont be so huge say about 15 to 25 items a week I am predicting. Which company would be best to go for pick up and the parcel and delivery to the end customer. I am looking at hermes , interlink express and others . Will be great if someone can assist me to choose one a parcel carrier. I am a one man company and cannot afford business accounts with them so trying to keep the cost affordable for my startup.

Thanks

I also suggest the Royal Mail for any item under 2Kg. They are by far the cheapest AND the most reliable.

I would have to agree, use Royal Mail tracked services for packages under 2kg. Anything larger or heavier than the max weight and size dimensions should go through a broker like Parcel2Go or Parcel Monkey etc. You can get quotes before you buy, just type in your destination and the size and weight dimensions and they will give you a quote on the spot. No third party fees. Need any more help mate, let me know.

 

[Iconic Autographs]

Over 1 kg is actually £5.45.....

 

[bharris]

If your goods are high value then couriers become more affordable at lighter weights if you want/need tracking and Proof of Delivery. RM are great and we very rarely have any problems.
Over the last few months we have tried quite a number of couriers and all delivered as expected apart from Ipostparcels / UKMail out of 10 parcels we had issues with 6 of them including loosing 2 of them. There customer service is beyond belief and we still have an issue with one of parcels still its only been just over a month. Avoid them at all costs.
We opted for Interlink Express in the end and so far very happy. They get the higher value / heavy parcels and RM get the rest.
Good luck

 

[Parcelhub]

If you get to a stage where you're sending 10 parcels/day on average then we can offer you a multi-carrier solution although it really depends on the typical weight of your products.