Cheap Parcel Delivery - official discussion

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  • fivespud364
    fivespud364 Posts: 2 Newbie
    edited 5 December 2012 at 9:42AM
    If you send parcels regularly it is worth talking to parcelforce we have a pay and go account with them which means I pay for them online and they collect from me when I have parcels booked in as opposed to a regular daily collection and pay £7.57 for all parcels up to 30kg in weight which includes VAT which we can claim back bringing it down to £6.31. We send all orders over 1.5kg by parcelforce the rest go Royal Mail. We are sending vegetable plants so delivery timing is critical and safe delivery without damage. we send 24 hr delivery so it is cheaper still for 48hr or 3 day delivery.

    The most important thing for us is that they are delivered fast and undamaged and with parcelforce I would say over 99% are and we ship about 300 orders a month peak season and we have been with parcelforce for 2 years now We have used City Link and Interlink Express in the past and both were seriously bad for delivering on time and damage we used to get up to 4 or 5 a week either not delivered on time or damaged we had reports of plant parcels being chucked over a 6 foot gate and one was found under a hedge of an empty house down the road from where it was supposed to have gone two months later when a gardener was clearing the garden for a new tenant.
  • Cordy
    Cordy Posts: 206
    First Anniversary
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    I'm confused. Sending a 1kg package to Australia for Christmas is £28.88 by Transglobal express ( Martin's best buy for worldwide delivery), but Royal Mail small packet (for gifts) is £14.66.

    Am I missing the point of the article, "If it weighs more than 750g, you can save an absolute packet (sorry) by using a discount web courier service instead of the Royal Mail" ?
  • I would never ever use COLLECT PLUS
    I sell laptops and had used COLLECT PLUS before once or twice, then I sold 6 refurbished laptops via ebay packed them up in identical boxes and posted them off all to be signed for on delivery, 2 went missing entirely with no trace on the system after initial collection in Leeds, one which was supposed to go to Surrey was delivered and signed for by someone in Leeds, COLLECT PLUS can't find the paper work or trace where it was actually delivered to, another was allegedly delivered to customer and signed for by customer who flatly denies it, again COLLECT PLUS have no paper work that they can find,
    customer service is non exsistent, I must have rung about 30 times and been promised call backs and had none, emailed complaint to manager and head office numerous times and still not been contacted,so to cut a long story short was refunded aprox £50 for each laptop, and had to refund customers aprox £1200 through paypal for non delivery of laptops :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
  • You must speak as you find but I have used MyHermes many times without problem. I needed to send a bench grinder recently; Royal Mail was around £21 and MyHermes under £7.
    As long as you can accept they are slow at 4-5 days, so far I have been completely happy.
    Most problems with any courier are the driver doing the final leg. Good driver = happy customer, poor or careless driver = problem and this will apply with them all including UPS, DHL Yodel etc etc.
  • I run a company that does a lot of mail order in the uk & abroad, for uk mainland we use & have an account with ukmail which are very good on price & excellent on service. they also do a bagit service for items that would fit in a bag they supply them in 4 sizes (from £3.50 next day)
    we use parcel2go for most international parcels as they are the best on price we have found with good customer service with their online chat help service (only had a couple of minor problems in 2 years of using them & they were sorted out very promptly)
    Have used hermes but they never collected the day they were supposed to & had a couldnt care less attitude - never again.
    Beware of parcelmonkey we did use them for a short while but they kept charging our credit card with extra fees (quite large £10-£25 a time) saying that the parcel was wrongly measured but couldnt offer proof from the courier- we send 100's of parcels out so we know how to weigh & measure them- strangely these were with ups & fedex who we use through parcel2go now & have never had an extra charge with them.
    hope this helps
    tony
  • Hi,

    I've noticed that Parcelforce come up cheap on these websites. Has anyone used Parcelforce this way? I need to send a large (but light) parcel to Australia and it's about half the original price using Parcel Monkey.

    Thanks
    we use parcel2go using parcelforce even cheaper & better service
    unfortunately large parcels are measured by volume as well as weight so it may not be cheap
  • Hi. Can anyone help with shipping from US to UK please? I tried companies mentioned here but they charge more than 4 times what they charge from UK to US. Tried EBAY, but no luck.
    Thanks
  • You can only speak of your own experiences :
    I have recently started using MyHermes ( 5 times in last 3 weeks) and have used both courier pick up and local shop drop off. I have found them cheap and efficient.
    Personally they get the thumbs up from me :T
    :) Moxxy - girl :)
  • I'm confused.

    Booked a parcel collection through Parcel2Go website and Yodel seemed a good deal so went for them. Due to be collected on Monday. Waited in all day and at 7pm (the latest they work) I went on to Live Chat to ask what had happened. They were very apologetic and said they would rebook with TNT as in their words "they are more reliable". Had to print off new labels and paperwork and it was duly collected Tuesday afternoon.

    I just tracked the parcel and it said the usual things about received in Crawley Depot, then received at Rotherham depot, then it said:

    05/12/2012 11:57:00 ROTHERHAM Receiver not home. Follow up action underway.

    but then it said:

    05/12/2012 20:36:00 ROTHERHAM Held awaiting customs clearance

    Anyone know what that's all about?? Does that mean they're going to open it do you think? It's only a doll.
  • So confused...

    I want to send something to Greece and am looking at the Royal Mail website to try and understand the potential costs. A complete maze and no easy contact option for them that I can find.

    The weight of the small packet will be under the 2kg limit stated on this page: http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/delivery-options-international/airmail/prices.

    This post office page has the definition of a packet: http://www.postoffice.co.uk/how-to-pack-items - and the Airmail box on another PO page seems to be within the maximum allowable dimensions: http://www.postofficeshop.co.uk/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=233&Section_Id=4898&pcount=&Product_Id=215518

    So can somebody give me the confidence of being right that I should be able to send books and a few miscellaneous items in that box, as a small parcel, weighing under 2kg, via Royal Mail and not having to use a courier service?

    Thanks in advance
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