Couriers v Royal Mail!

I have happily been using Parcels2go since April, 2013 and this morning when I went to buy the courier service, the cheapest has now gone up by 40%. If I put my prices up by 40% I would go out of business in a week.   Will have to go back to Rotten Mail and Parcel Farce! I am so angry!!!!

I am a one woman business and cannot compete with large companies who offer free shipping.

I have started using Rotten Mail's business service. You need to send over 1000 parcels a year now. It used to be 5000 but they've changed it. However, will say that you can't claim for lost parcels etc and since I've started using this service I have had more lost parcels than I ever had to the point that I'm putting in a complaint. So in some respects its not saved me any money as what I do save on postage is spent on replacing the goods that have been lost.

Feeling very fed up with it all at the moment. Everything is just so cr*p. Poor suppliers, poor postal service, nasty customers at times, why do we bother...

Edited by raineshoe - 20 June 2013 at 10:37am

We have the same problems with Royal Mail. I have started using UPS with the drop off service they operate.All you need to do is go to Interparcels website and they charge £6.99 + vat rather than £8.49 plus for them to collect.You then drop off the parcels at your local UPS drop off point. So far no problems.

Hi Rainshoe,

I'm sending 600-800 items a month out on OBA with Royal Mail.

The only real problems I have is where customers live in flats and don't get carded because there's only a communal letterbox.

Other than that, maybe one or two 'lost' items per month. The online version of shoplifting basically.

If you're getting lots of small items going 'missing', it may be worth including a barcode in your address label. I'm told this works, however you do run the risk of the smarter theives challenging you to track their order.

The other thing I now do routinely when I get a 'where's my item' email is to book a redelivery through Royal Mail's website.

You enter the customer's name and address etc, for date of failed delivery you make an educated guess and just leave the calling card number blank.

It works. I get less hassle doing this because it takes the responsibility of checking with the delivery office away from the customer. This causes about half of my 'lost' items to magically appear.

raineshoe wrote: I accept some customers might be pulling a fast one, but the amount we are getting can't possibly be all crooked customers.

Talking to some colleagues, it depends upon what you sell.

A friend who sells phone accessories has a high loss rate, anything up to 3 or 4%. It's because most of his customers are barely 18 and many will try it on.

I used to buy 'lost in transit' mail and parcels from both Royal Mail and several couriers.

A loss rate of 3% would mean regular auctions the size of huge warehouses - this simply isn't the case.

Could your regulars who used to receive their parcels by courier be taking advantage of untracked mail?

The solution may not be to change to courier based shipping but rather to find a way of adding a few pence to each order to cover losses.

I see it as a game.

Other possibility is of course that RM delayed a bag of mail in one of their strikes last week. Depends whether you drop your bags off at the local PO or whether you deal directly with the sorting office.