Cheapest Postage - 1.2kg Jiffy Bags

Shep_3

I want to post a number of parcels weighing 1.2kg each. There are 24 of them in all but they won't be posted together (i.e. 3 or 4 a week).

The Royal Mail want £4.52 per item. Is there a cheaper way?

RichyRich

Are they all going to the same address? If so, bundle them all into one and use a discount parcel broker (someone like https://www.postvan.com - plenty more, check out the eBay Payments 'n Postage board for recommendations or otherwise - think another one is called https://www.senditquick.co.uk). These use parcel services such as Parcel Force, UPS, TNT, Securicor Omega Express etc but have a huge business account discount which, even after their markup is considerably cheaper than using the company directly.

If they're all going differen places, I can't think of any way to send it cheaper, unless you got a franking machine on a free trial from Pitney Bowes (https://www.pitneybowes.com), franked them all up within the month and then sent it back before you have to start paying for it. I believe franked mail still benefits from a 1p discount on postage (though you will have to decided whether 1p per parcel justifies messing about with the free trial).

clarification - The free trial is for the rental of the franking equipment, not free postage!

Contains_Mild_Peril

If the packages contain separate items, it could be possible to save a small amount of money if you can divide them into 2 parcels of less than 750g each, which could then be sent 2nd class. Standard 2nd class postage prices are as follows:
60g 21p
100g 35p
150g 47p
200g 58p
250g 71p
300g 83p
350g 94p
400g £1.14
450g £1.30
500g £1.48
600g £1.75
700g £2.00
750g £2.12
so if you were to split a 1.2kg parcel into 2 parcels each weighing between 600-700g, you'd save 52p minus the cost of the extra jiffy bag.

ianonline

Insert a helium balloon into each package to provide upward lift and therefore make the package lighter.

This leads me to wonder whether anyone has actually tried to post an inflated helium balloon. Can you imagine taking it to the post office wrapped in brown paper and when the counter assistant asks you to place the item on the scales, it just floated up to the ceiling. As it has "negative weight" they would have to PAY YOU to deliver the item. :rotfl:

bleugh

Brainiac on sky actually tried this, and discovered that just to post an empty box you'd need a few quid's worth of helium to reduce the weight by a few 10's of grammes :-)

never tried to post a helium baloon tho, that could be interesting

Contains_Mild_Peril

I never heard any more of it since then, but I recall years ago Tomorrow's World featured a substance which was actually a solid, yet lighter than air. I think it was called Sea-Gel or something like that. It was suggested that it could be a miracle packing material. Maybe it was too expensive to make and they thought they'd find a way to bring the price down, but didn't.

bleugh

Contains_Mild_Peril wrote:

I never heard any more of it since then, but I recall years ago Tomorrow's World featured a substance which was actually a solid, yet lighter than air. I think it was called Sea-Gel or something like that. It was suggested that it could be a miracle packing material. Maybe it was too expensive to make and they thought they'd find a way to bring the price down, but didn't.

that was 'aero gel', also known as ice smoke or solid smoke,
it's not quite lighter than air, but it is pretty much the lightest substance known and the least dense solid known.

NASA use it for their particle retreival missions as it's so light its easy to send to space. also as the structure isnt very dense its easy to see foreign particles in there!