Postage help

pocketfluff · 16 April 2018 at 10:01PM

I sell through an ecommerce website and post with royal mail 1st and 2nd class standard.

Recently I've had shed loads of parcels suddenly start to disappear and not turn up. Some have been extremely delayed too so 1st class parcel only got delivered 2 weeks later and other parcels just completely disappeared. Its become very costly trying to replace lost parcels as everything is handmade.

I rang royal mail with the reference numbers on the receipts and they couldn't explain the delays or the losses. I've put claims in but not holding out much hope.

DPD have quoted me for £5 per parcel which is not really what I want to be charging my customers or paying myself as alot of my parcels are approx 300g. They range between 200 to 600g.

Is there any way to ensure my customers receive their parcels? Would royal mail tracked or maybe signed for delivery be more reliable?

I have started to receive orders for wedding favours too and obviously want to ensure that these get to the recipients safely and on time.

Thanks in advance

Savvy_Sue · 16 April 2018 at 10:41PM

Can't help myself, but I believe there's a thread on the Ebay etc board which might help ...

martindow · 17 April 2018 at 9:04AM

I have losses of less than one in five hundred and it is surprising if your losses are very high.

Reasons for non delivery can be labels coming off, incorrect addresses being used or no return address put on parcels. I suppose there could be a problem with the PO that you are using although this is very rare.

Look carefully at how you are packing and addressing parcels and I would try a different PO to see what happens. If a different PO solves the problem you need to tell RM.

Your claims should succeed, but if items are handmade you will probably not get much back over the postage cost. Businesses can only claim the actual cost of the item not the selling price. You may have trouble quantifying the value of your time.

RM is going to be cheaper than anyone else for light weights unless they are too big to go as a small parcel. If they are small enough to go as a large letter no other carrier will be anywhere near in price.

As Sue says there are a lot of threads regarding postage on the Ebay board.

custardy · 17 April 2018 at 9:07AM

pocketfluff wrote: »

I sell through an ecommerce website and post with royal mail 1st and 2nd class standard.

Recently I've had shed loads of parcels suddenly start to disappear and not turn up. Some have been extremely delayed too so 1st class parcel only got delivered 2 weeks later and other parcels just completely disappeared. Its become very costly trying to replace lost parcels as everything is handmade.

I rang royal mail with the reference numbers on the receipts and they couldn't explain the delays or the losses. I've put claims in but not holding out much hope.

DPD have quoted me for £5 per parcel which is not really what I want to be charging my customers or paying myself as alot of my parcels are approx 300g. They range between 200 to 600g.

Is there any way to ensure my customers receive their parcels? Would royal mail tracked or maybe signed for delivery be more reliable?

I have started to receive orders for wedding favours too and obviously want to ensure that these get to the recipients safely and on time.

Thanks in advance

Tracked is treated as a premium product. Yuo would need ot do the math on the costs though.
However what do you define as 'shed loads'? eg missing vs sent?

scoly · 17 April 2018 at 9:40AM

pocketfluff wrote: »

I sell through an ecommerce website and post with royal mail 1st and 2nd class standard.

Recently I've had shed loads of parcels suddenly start to disappear and not turn up. Some have been extremely delayed too so 1st class parcel only got delivered 2 weeks later and other parcels just completely disappeared. Its become very costly trying to replace lost parcels as everything is handmade.

I rang royal mail with the reference numbers on the receipts and they couldn't explain the delays or the losses. I've put claims in but not holding out much hope.

DPD have quoted me for £5 per parcel which is not really what I want to be charging my customers or paying myself as alot of my parcels are approx 300g. They range between 200 to 600g.

Is there any way to ensure my customers receive their parcels? Would royal mail tracked or maybe signed for delivery be more reliable?

I have started to receive orders for wedding favours too and obviously want to ensure that these get to the recipients safely and on time.

Thanks in advance

Can I ask why you are not holding out much hope for compensation for loss or delay in your parcels if you have proof of postage? :huh:

In the very rare occassions I have had cause to claim, RM have always paid out in line with their compensation policy without issue.

However, if you've really recently had "had shed loads of parcels suddenly start to disappear and not turn up", I would suggest you contact the police with all your supporting evidence.

martindow · 17 April 2018 at 1:14PM

scoly wrote: »

Can I ask why you are not holding out much hope for compensation for loss or delay in your parcels if you have proof of postage? :huh:

In the very rare occassions I have had cause to claim, RM have always paid out in line with their compensation policy without issue.

However, if you've really recently had "had shed loads of parcels suddenly start to disappear and not turn up", I would suggest you contact the police with all your supporting evidence.

The OP mentioned that these are hand made items. I'm sure they will get the postage back but the value of the items that have been lost could be more problematic as RM will want some evidence of value. If you have knitted something you may be able to produce an invoice for the wool but I don't know whether RM would accept a claim for the time spent knitting. - I suspect not.

pocketfluff · 18 April 2018 at 5:43PM

Packaging - I use boxes wrapped in brown paper with a printed label on the front and my return address label on the back. Not much more really that I can do in terms of packaging as I believe they are packaged well enough. I don't think labels etc would fall off.

Amount - I usually post in batches of 10. So on that receipt I'll have 2 to 3 parcels either severely delayed or missing. I ring royal mail and they can't give specific answers as to what is happening. The reference number always says 'an update will be available when we attempt to deliver your item'. One parcel that was 'lost', the lady it was for went to her local sorting office and it was there. They gave her the parcel without the red card. Another lady who's parcel was first delayed (royal mails words, posted on 22nd march and said it would be delayed until the 13th) this lady was turned away from the same sorting office the day after the other lady was able to get her parcel

eventually it came to light that it was lost as it never turned up after the 13th either.

Its just so strange? Although I never have this problem when using a different post office so I agree it may be a post office issue

Postage help

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