Courier recommendations?

[Ian Clyde]

Hi,

I have been using Despatch Bay (using Parcelforce) for my courier service for the last year who have been great and until this week was paying £5.30 for three day service and £5.65 for overnight service. However this week thay have announced a staggering 16.5% increase. Does anyone have suggestions for an alternative courier?

Thanks....

[completerookie]

many couriers play the "size of package" and "delivery to business/customer" options.
we sell wheelchairs (large 98x31x78 but only 12kg) and TNT prices started mounting up when we actually showed them a box of that size and told them that its going to householders - the price suddenly doubled and became an instant no-go
we tried ParcelForce, again high fees.

eventually settled on Fedex - chairs now go to UK (excluding highlands and islands) for £6.53 - very very reasonable.
if you use their bags, then its even cheaper (small medium large)
we sent a chair to strabane recently, paid more but it was still a reasonable £27
all are overnight deliveries, collected from us.

I think they are looking for a pattern, you need to be able to quote a history to them (usual quantity, usual type of custoomer) but the prices were good,
95% of the time, its next day delivery, and occasionally, much like any other delivery company, it gets sent to the wrong depot and is delayed a day, but they normally let you know.

kev

[Ian Clyde]

Thanks Kev, thats useful, thanks for your thoughts.

Ian.

[Paul Bulpit]

We are a big customer, on regular volume of parcels, with both Fedex and City Link and our rates are better than those mentioned in the two previous posts.

But even given our volume rates we still find that for certain transactions it can be more cost effective to use Hermes or Interparcel, so check them out.