Postage Outside UK

lolacherry

I wonder if I could get a bit of guidance...

I sell a lot of cards and prints in the UK.  Commonly it is 1-2 in an order so very thin and light weight posting.
recently I’ve had quite a few non-UK orders, specifically Germany.
looking up Royal Mail info online, it claims standard and economy is between 5-7 days and on my shop it states it will take some time, however, I’m getting a few customers coming back saying they are receiving their delivery 4-5+ weeks later and of course they aren’t too happy.

i am charging correctly for P+P for this and the next rate up is around £5 which is quite a jump.

is there any alternatives for quicker postage or how do other small businesses charge? I’m concerned the jump might put off future overseas purchases 

Savvy_Sue

I don't know, but are you using the 'printed matter' option? I believe that can be very slow, but it's a number of years since I used it. 

Are you marking stuff 'Air Mail'? Or using the stickers they (used to) provide?

It could be worth contacting royal mail and checking that you are not accidentally scuppering the process. Post Office counter staff may be helpful, but I'm not sure they all know as much as they need to these days. (Not to be rude to them, but now there are fewer and fewer dedicated post offices, there are so many options that it must take a while to get your head round them all.)

soolin

lolacherry said:

I wonder if I could get a bit of guidance...

I sell a lot of cards and prints in the UK.  Commonly it is 1-2 in an order so very thin and light weight posting.
recently I’ve had quite a few non-UK orders, specifically Germany.
looking up Royal Mail info online, it claims standard and economy is between 5-7 days and on my shop it states it will take some time, however, I’m getting a few customers coming back saying they are receiving their delivery 4-5+ weeks later and of course they aren’t too happy.

i am charging correctly for P+P for this and the next rate up is around £5 which is quite a jump.

is there any alternatives for quicker postage or how do other small businesses charge? I’m concerned the jump might put off future overseas purchases 

Are you using economy which is surface mail and which RM say may take up to 2 weeks for delivery) or standard which is airmail and which is estimated 5-7 days ? Those estimates are for ‘normal times’ And you need to keep an eye on the international updates as RM have had warning since March about not reaching their estimates due to passage between various countries being part restricted. 

I usually ship worldwide (excluding certain countries like Italy, and some continents) but due to the TM slowdown have restricted my sales recently to UK only as back in March/April I had two claims opened in PayPal very early while items were still in transit. 

lolacherry

Thanks for your comments - I was posting airmail as I had been advised this was the quicker option.
Ive never sold outside UK until the start of this year and even then I didn’t get much until recently.

its looking likely that the process is being mixed up, sadly I only have one post office and it is the same advisor so it could be things aren’t being processed correctly .
im going to look into this and see if I can try and limit the possible issues.  I was unsure if I had been missing a mailing option that would actually get to the customer in a reasonable timeframe .

i was just really confused as while I do state “due to Covid...” on the store, it did give a bit of leeway for delays but nearly a 4week delay is a bit crazy.  Think the longest transit was just over 5weeks so it’s quite a wait which Is why I was unsure if I had missed something xx

Sandtree

Why not offer both the standard option you are currently are with the warning that due to covid etc the times may be longer and then the more expensive courier upgrade to see if people are willing to pay the price?