Buyer "in the UK" turns out to be in Jersey

DaveAshton

As the missus said above, Paypal throws a proper wobbler if you try to print a label for Guernsey or Jersey.

You put the address correct, and get told the weight's "more than you can send using the selecteed method" or something. Obviously you can't use Large Letter or whatever for the CIs, it has to go as an airmail option (small packets, I think...). But it's in the UK, so you can't do that.

I was tempted to route it through France by setting France as the destination country (it'd have let me, despite the postcode being wrong etc), but didn't fancy it getting lost...

EXPAT_2

EXPAT wrote: »

The CI are not part of the UK! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Neither are we (IOM)

cyberbob

RFW wrote: »

I'm a small business, we're on contract and get surcharged by Parcelforce. We don't pass it on, but its usually a hefty bit higher, around a third in fact. The cheapest rate for N. Ireland is usually by Paypal strangely. I'm sure postcode sort will be coming in in the next year on Ebay in the UK, then a lot of the highlands and Islands will be paying higher rates if they want courier items.

There's plenty of couriers out there who don't charge extra for the islands. What I have found is a lot of companies don't actually thing about the market There are a lot of customers in these remote areas as we rely on mail order for a lot of things. So if you can keep your pricing reasonable you can gain good repeat custom. I have no problem paying a reasonable surcharge to get certain items to me (some companies big and small take the Pee though). When I know that I can get them sent up cheaper though it makes you think they are profiteering.

There was some items I wanted and only one company would do them. So for a 6kg package there postage costs to mainland was free. To get the item to me the company wanted to charge £44!!. I even emailed and asked if there was a cheaper way. No luck. SO I got the item sent to my Dad. Paid a courier to pick it up and got it here for less than £10. So it travelled more distance for less money.

Since the RM (and due to lots of problems) strikes I have had to rethink my mail strategy. Items over a certain weight now all go via a courier than Parcelforce or RM. So in my search for couriers I now have a list of 6 that will dispatch from here with no extra charges that are cheaper than Parcelforce (for these items) and provide the insurance and tracking that I need. So it is possible. I did look at a contract with parcelforce but there Islands surcharge was as you say 1/3 more expensive as all my items come from here that would be unviable for me. Out of the companies I have started to use I am considering contracting with 2 of them as they have come back with very good prices

I live in a remote are (my choice) I do not expect everything to be as cheap as in a large urban area (pertol is £1.20 a litre at the moment!) Its just when it seems that some companies are taking advantage to get extra profit now that gets my back up

RFW

cyberbob wrote: »

There's plenty of couriers out there who don't charge extra for the islands. What I have found is a lot of companies don't actually thing about the market There are a lot of customers in these remote areas as we rely on mail order for a lot of things. So if you can keep your pricing reasonable you can gain good repeat custom. I have no problem paying a reasonable surcharge to get certain items to me (some companies big and small take the Pee though). When I know that I can get them sent up cheaper though it makes you think they are profiteering.

There was some items I wanted and only one company would do them. So for a 6kg package there postage costs to mainland was free. To get the item to me the company wanted to charge £44!!. I even emailed and asked if there was a cheaper way. No luck. SO I got the item sent to my Dad. Paid a courier to pick it up and got it here for less than £10. So it travelled more distance for less money.

Since the RM (and due to lots of problems) strikes I have had to rethink my mail strategy. Items over a certain weight now all go via a courier than Parcelforce or RM. So in my search for couriers I now have a list of 6 that will dispatch from here with no extra charges that are cheaper than Parcelforce (for these items) and provide the insurance and tracking that I need. So it is possible. I did look at a contract with parcelforce but there Islands surcharge was as you say 1/3 more expensive as all my items come from here that would be unviable for me. Out of the companies I have started to use I am considering contracting with 2 of them as they have come back with very good prices

I live in a remote are (my choice) I do not expect everything to be as cheap as in a large urban area (pertol is £1.20 a litre at the moment!) Its just when it seems that some companies are taking advantage to get extra profit now that gets my back up

I agree, I did have a good rate with Parcelforce so it averaged out quite good to charge a flat rate for all my customers, it seems to work pretty well, as long as I don't have a week where all my customers are in N. Ireland I'm fine!! It would be nice for a courier to charge a flat rate across the UK especially if they are naturally going to the surcharge areas anyway.

The additional thing with Channel Islands is having to fill in a customs form, it isn't too time consuming, but it is extra work and slows down shipping if you only send within the UK.