Postage options for seasonal volumes?

trafficisland

I have an eBay shop that sells a modest amount of items year-round, but which is far busier around Christmas (50-200 items a day). Last year I spent hours every day queuing in the post office and had a lot of problems with postal delays so I'm researching better methods for this year. However, most courier companies want me to set up an account and send a certain number of items for a minimum 1 year period. Since I only really sell large volumes between November - January, this is a problem.

I've looked into franking or dropping bulk bags off to Royal Mail but again, there seems to be a 1 year account agreement. I'm currently using Parcel2Go for anything that won't go as a Royal Mail small packet, but spend just as long inputting the addresses as I do standing in the post office. Can anyone suggest any postage services which would save time but still be competitively priced?

paddyrg

I'd ask in the ebay forum on this site if you haven't tried there already. The people there do a LOT of posting of stuff, probably get more horse's mouth advice from there than here :-)

gingerdad

I get very good seasonal rates for a one off job I do on the summer. Personally I'd set off with a parcel carrier on an 1 year rate they dont see to track rates very well as one of our sites is still using a really good bulk deal I negotiated 3 years ago even though they only send a few a month and we use some one else for our very large job.