Cheap Parcel Delivery Official Discussion

dean_dodds

Hi, Thanks Strapped, I have heard of dispatch bay, however they are £6.30 for a guaranteed next day, and about another £1.85 if you dont have at least 3 parcels collected at the same time, so hopefully I can compete with them.

The cheaper £5.78 I think is for a 1-3 day none guaranteed service

My service will also offer a money back guarantee if the delivery is not attempted on time, subject to the normal carrier T&C's such as delays out of their control etc.


I appreciate you taking the time to give me that name though, as your right, people like this would definately be my main competitors.

jordanryan

dean_dodds wrote: »

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, however I am considering setting up my own freight forwarding company, and can negotiate rates which would allow me to offer a next day UPS delivery to UK Mainland address for £6.75 up to 30kg's, or £8.75 up to 40kg's Excl VAT I have 5 years experience in the courier industry with the UK Market leader, so believe I know exactly what customers expect and want from a carrier, regarding customer service, and delivery reporting etc.

If I could offer these kind of rates do you think I would be able to compete in the market with other more time served forwarders, such as Interparcel etc.

Many thanks.

Isn't you biggest competitor Interparcel with the same service for £6.99+VAT?

jammin_2

dean_dodds wrote: »

Hi, Thanks Strapped, I have heard of dispatch bay, however they are £6.30 for a guaranteed next day, and about another £1.85 if you dont have at least 3 parcels collected at the same time, so hopefully I can compete with them.

The cheaper £5.78 I think is for a 1-3 day none guaranteed service

My service will also offer a money back guarantee if the delivery is not attempted on time, subject to the normal carrier T&C's such as delays out of their control etc.


I appreciate you taking the time to give me that name though, as your right, people like this would definately be my main competitors.

Na, doubt it. There's loads of them now, all competing with one another. You need to have a USP.

jordanryan

USP:

£500 insurance
guaranteed next day or money back
UPS
£6.75 + VAT

some good points don't you think?

Would you have to print off UPS labels?

m00nie

well my parcel was delivered today so one happy customer here..

used citylink via parcel2go..

went via quidco also so even got £4 to come back

paulofessex

It certainly pays to shop around when looking to send parcels via one of the 3rd agents.

Today l have booked 2 collections for tommorow.

Collection 1 is for one parcel weighing 9kg via City Link

Collection 2 is for two parcels to same address, total weight 18kg via City Link.

The total price l paid was £17.83 However on checking out another 3rd company the cost would have been a whooping £32.35

Is certainly a big difference considering it would be the same courier company collecting and delivering. I appreciate the 3rd party companies are running a business but the difference in price is amazing.

So my advice to anyone new to using the 3rd party agents is to shop around.

dean_dodds

Thanks JordanRyan, I hope they are good USP's, as this is what I am counting on to gather business quite rapidly, I am hoping at the prices I am listing, with the insurance etc I might come up as quite a strong competitor.

I am using UPS who are one of the most reliable, yes you would have to print your label off, but it will have a barcode on, and will offer realtime tracking to the shipper.

I am hoping to start coming into the market by drumming up interest with business to business shipments, to get it off the ground, with the extra
revenue stream of residential shipments for one off movements etc.

I am hopeful that the prices will help me hit the ground running.

kgrins

Update on my messed-up parcel with City Link via Parcel Monkey. Despite assuring me that if found, they would return the parcel to me yesterday they delivered the item to the buyer (whom I have already refunded because he wasn’t willing to wait on a proper status).
From talking to various depots and the Camberley office, I believe the parcel (along with lots of other Parcel Monkey parcels) was sitting in Southampton depot until they sorted through the backlog this week.

See how this plays out (the buyer has contacted me by email so see if he wants to pay for the item, have it returned or what), but City Link are totally incompetent. I know that customer service had actually added a ‘return to sender’ note to the item since I had that confirmed from different reps during my multiple phone calls, but the depot handling it decided to finally pass on an item which had been sitting waiting for over two weeks without even checking if in the meantime there was any note saying to return to sender. Truly incompetent.

And Parcel Monkey must have know all along that their items got cancelled and that the most like depot for my item was Southampton (if I had know that earlier I could have phoned them and maybe they would have processed my item last week) but they said nothing. Parcel Monkey are truly useless. They have offered to refund my postage but seem to be taking their time with it.

City Link or Parcel Monkey? Never again!

JPS29

@ Dean.

You're prices seem good to me. I am a newly set up car breakers and currently use interparcel who I've never had a problem with, have used parcelmonkey 4 times, 2 good results, 2 bad. Would defnitely consider using you as a lot of my packages can be heavy. Also as car parts can be awkward sizes (towbars, bumpers etc) could you tell me what your size limitations are, and do these still cover the 30Kg. In the even interparcel comes out expensive due to size I have used senditnow/parcelforce with no problem. Will be watching your replies with interest. Hope all goes well for you

tippertip

JPS29 wrote: »

@ Dean.

You're prices seem good to me. I am a newly set up car breakers and currently use interparcel who I've never had a problem with, have used parcelmonkey 4 times, 2 good results, 2 bad. Would defnitely consider using you as a lot of my packages can be heavy. Also as car parts can be awkward sizes (towbars, bumpers etc) could you tell me what your size limitations are, and do these still cover the 30Kg. In the even interparcel comes out expensive due to size I have used senditnow/parcelforce with no problem. Will be watching your replies with interest. Hope all goes well for you

Hi, which of Interparcels services are you using for your heavier 30Kg stuff? How much per parcel?