Want to use courier for the first time - advice needed

Lemony

Hi. I have been reading this with interest. I am in the same boat and can no longer afford to use RM for delivery of small ebay parcels. What cost £2.20 to post a couple of weeks ago now costs £5.20 with no improvement in service. :eek:

If I use MyHermes, can I open an account and use it as and when I need to? By that I mean is there a minimum amount you need to send each week? I tend to have one week where I sell 3 or 4 items and then I may go several weeks without selling anything. Do you have to say it's an ebay parcel?

What is Collect+ that people have mentioned on this thread?

With MyHermes do you need to worry about measuring your parcels like you do with RM?

My local drop off point for MyHermes is too far away so I would have to arrange for a courier to collect parcels from my home. Is this easy to arrange and does this delay the delivery time by very much?

I only have a black and white printer. Can you print labels and stick them on with parcel tape or do you have to use proper sticky labels? Does the person who collects scan the parcel?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance.

I had enough problems with people complaining about RM charges BEFORE this price hike so I dread to think what customers will say now!

soolin

Lemony, it would probably be best to look at the websites as a lot of your basic questions will be answered there.

Both services are one off services, so no mimumin requirements. Both have parcel size restrictions, but you need to check those out on each site. Both allow black and white printing of a label onto plain paper.

soolin

MyHermes

https://www.myhermes.co.uk/wps/myportal/PN_CTR/Home/homepage/

Collect plus:

http://www.collectplus.co.uk/

Collect plus can be printed via ebay, My Hermes cannot. MyHermes only has £25 of insurance as standard. Both have huge lists of items for which no compensation for damage will be allowed- so check

Lemony

Thanks soolin. I did have a look on the MyHermes site but didn't find it very clear to understand. Maybe I was looking on the wrong pages.

Is there much difference between Collect+ and MyHermes other than being able to print via ebay? I assume you are still covered for insurance purposes as both are trackable online even if you don't do it via ebay?

So basically you need to know which method of postage you are going to use before you do your ebay listing! Sounds complicated!

martindow

sophieg123 wrote: »

i've used parcelmonkey in the past

you have to specify the weight length width and height but when they picked the item up they didnt check it, they just shoved it in the lorry!

something to think about...

The driver won't care - he just picks it up. But parcels may be checked for size along the way.

UPS picked up a parcel I sent that I knew was OK but right on the size limit. They check parcels at the hub apparently and wanted to charge a big supplement as they said it was oversize. After handling the parcel had bulged slightly. I argued that this was a result of their handling and they waived the extra charge.

Obviously_the_best

Lemony wrote: »

Hi. I have been reading this with interest. I am in the same boat and can no longer afford to use RM for delivery of small ebay parcels. What cost £2.20 to post a couple of weeks ago now costs £5.20 with no improvement in service. :eek:

If I use MyHermes, can I open an account and use it as and when I need to? By that I mean is there a minimum amount you need to send each week? I tend to have one week where I sell 3 or 4 items and then I may go several weeks without selling anything. Do you have to say it's an ebay parcel?

What is Collect+ that people have mentioned on this thread?

With MyHermes do you need to worry about measuring your parcels like you do with RM?

My local drop off point for MyHermes is too far away so I would have to arrange for a courier to collect parcels from my home. Is this easy to arrange and does this delay the delivery time by very much?

I only have a black and white printer. Can you print labels and stick them on with parcel tape or do you have to use proper sticky labels? Does the person who collects scan the parcel?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance.

I had enough problems with people complaining about RM charges BEFORE this price hike so I dread to think what customers will say now!

With myHermes you can send as many parcels as you wasn't, as and when you want.

Collect+ is like the myHermes parcelshop network, but run by Yodel. They'll allow deliveries to shops and homes, but only home delivery is recommended for eBay, you aren't covered for seller protection is you send to a shop, unless the buyer sets their delivery address to the shop address.

You will have to measure your parcels with all courier services, to check that they fit within the maximum size range.

A courier is all myHermes used to offer. The parcelshops are quite a new thing. A courier should take the same amount of time to delievr as the shop, and they're a small amount more expensive.

A black and white printer is fine. It just needs to print readable text. You just print labels on normal paper and sellotape them on making sure not to cover the barcode. The person who collects the parcel will scan it into the network, the it will get scanned at points throughout the process so you can see online where the parcel is.

More info at:

https://www.myhermes.co.uk
https://www.collectplus.co.uk

Lemony

Thank you for answering my questions.