1st Class versus 2nd Class!

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   Hi All
I know I could be opening a can of worms regarding Royal Mail here but I would be interested to know what people think of 2nd Class Royal Mail!

I currently send all the lighter orders using 1st Class only, but with the times being as they are I'm looking to cut costs wherever possible. Using 2nd Class could save me over £100 a week!!

So what I need to know is how long does a parcel actually take to arrive? Are you and your customers happy with the service (asking for it there!!)? Is there any good reason not to switch to 2nd Class?
Or any other points that would be helpful.

Thanks all.
Nobby

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Nobby Members Profile Find Members Posts RomanCart Guru Joined: 28 April 2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 822	Post Options Post Reply Quote Nobby Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: 1st Class versus 2nd Class! Posted: 12 January 2012 at 9:00am
	Hi All I know I could be opening a can of worms regarding Royal Mail here but I would be interested to know what people think of 2nd Class Royal Mail! I currently send all the lighter orders using 1st Class only, but with the times being as they are I'm looking to cut costs wherever possible. Using 2nd Class could save me over £100 a week!! So what I need to know is how long does a parcel actually take to arrive? Are you and your customers happy with the service (asking for it there!!)? Is there any good reason not to switch to 2nd Class? Or any other points that would be helpful. Thanks all. Nobby

raineshoe Members Profile Find Members Posts Senior Member Joined: 03 October 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1502	Post Options Post Reply Quote raineshoe Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 12 January 2012 at 12:54pm
	You sound as though you are paying for postage. My customers pay for postage when they order. Have to say I give customers the option of 1st and 2nd class and the majority opt for 1st class. Very few ask for 2nd class. Also, those that have selected 2nd class don't seem to be receiving for about a week.

raineshoe Members Profile Find Members Posts Senior Member Joined: 03 October 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1502	Post Options Post Reply Quote raineshoe Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 12 January 2012 at 12:58pm
	Just looked at your site. Very low free delivery option ie £25.00 order. I have mine at £70.00. Although at the end of the day its your business and you have to do what you think is right. If I send anything over £70.00 I always send 1st class recorded which is at our expense. Perhaps raise the free delivery option and offer some other incentive somewhere else.

Nobby Members Profile Find Members Posts RomanCart Guru Joined: 28 April 2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 822	Post Options Post Reply Quote Nobby Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 12 January 2012 at 1:41pm
	Hi Raineshoe The free delivery at £25 is really set to what competitors are doing in my area of products, luckily they are quite high profit items so we can take the average £1-£1.50 loss per parcel that this produces. So although the customers are paying for postage some of the time it does mean I am paying for postage all the time, so just trying to claw back a bit of the loss! Every penny counts nowadays! I do like to keep it simple on the postage side, just 2 basic methods of Standard and Express. The standard being the one that's free over £25. An option would be to add a third method, Economy, for the free offer and have that for the 2nd Class, although we do use Parcel Force for the over 2kg parcels and would still lose on that...could be worth a trial though. Cheers Nobby

raineshoe Members Profile Find Members Posts Senior Member Joined: 03 October 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1502	Post Options Post Reply Quote raineshoe Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 12 January 2012 at 2:31pm
	I think that might be a good idea. Like I said most of ours opt for 1st class when given the choice, which maybe tells us something ie that people want things promptly. I even get people asking for guaranteed next day on items that they clearly don't need next day, although this is not often. I think that's a good idea to add a third method. Also, if you give them a choice you can monitor what option people pick and then decide whether to alter it later on. When I've thought about it Amazon do free delivery but you then expect a 3-5 day drop for it, although I find arrives quicker in most cases. So you wouldn't be any different from that by offering Economy second class for your free offer. Edited by raineshoe - 12 January 2012 at 2:32pm

rich-erich Members Profile Find Members Posts Senior Member Joined: 18 December 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 735	Post Options Post Reply Quote rich-erich Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 17 January 2012 at 9:36am
	Since the last price rise we are now using 2nd class as standard free delivery option and have no complaints. We offer an upgrade to first class for just 50p but very few take this up; so tells us that most are happy to wait a few days for delivery of order. We also have next day delivery as an option which is rarely used.
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raineshoe Members Profile Find Members Posts Senior Member Joined: 03 October 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1502	Post Options Post Reply Quote raineshoe Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 17 January 2012 at 10:13am
	Interesting, I think it also says a lot about the type of people who order your stuff to mine and the type of product. I get very few select second class, quite a lot select guaranteed next day even though I'm sure they don't need it and the majority are 1st class. Having said that a lot of our customers will order over Saturday/Sunday when they have used up their paints and then order so its delivered in time for the next round of faces to be painted on the following weekend Quite often companies specify particular colours ie Ikea once said all faces had to be painted in yellow and blue so if a variety of colours is not available in the kit already people order "urgently" for a particular job.