A few thoughts about posting items you have sold or want to sell

[hifinutt]

Hmmm, I feel I must post something in defence of Royal Mail (and I don't work for them!), as the service is not IMO as bad as portrayed. For all the years I have been using RM I can count on one hand the times they have failed me. In fact I can only think of two times and these were Tesco DVD rentals that never arrived back at Tesco, or so Tesco say? I am an eBay trader with over 500 successful sales, most of which were sent via normal mail. The compensation described in your third point is not quite correct either;



That puts maximum compensation at a basic level at £46.00, provided you can validate your claim, dropping it into a mailbox alone is not a good idea. I always obtain a proof of posting and if the value is more than around 30.00 it goes recorded, but as pointed out the way recorded mail is routed and handled is no different to regular mail. I am however fastidious about addressing, with large clearly legible labels and I photograph the packet too. Looking at some of the parcels I get from eBay and the scrawls written on the packets, it's no wonder that some don't arrive - is this the carriers fault? I guess a lot can depend on where you live too and the staff at your local depot.

All the other advice is sound and makes sense, I also like Parcel2Go but do choose the carrier wisely as cheapest if often not worth it, especially if you have to wait in all day and the courier does not turn up (CityLink on two separate occasions).

I may have been lucky, but I think Royal Fail is a bit harsh.

yes i must say royal mail have delivered 99% of mail on time over several years. can`t praise them enough now couriers....don`t get me started!

[Mr.Ian]

A second vote here for Parcel2Go, excellent service and creates all the paperwork for you.

excellent BUT only providing the parcel arrives and does so in one piece - having seen their aftersale service for damaged in transit in action I wouldn't go near this operation ever again.

If you want ease of quote in my opinion transglobal are the best, insurance costs show, and costs are amongst the lowest especially on international too but some of the rules are a bit stringent so interparcel might fit the bill.

As for Royal Mail its always proved very reliable for me and for low weight high value items my preferred route

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

I have just used Royal Mail to send my cartridge to Dominic for checks and service.
They insured it up to £2.5k and it cost £11 ish


Couriers on the other hand;

DHL

Never had anything but problems with these lot;

Drop It
Hide It
Loose It

Andy - SDDW

[Dominic Harper]

[QUOTE=Sand Dancin Donkey Walker;303240]I have just used Royal Mail to send my cartridge to Dominic for checks and service.
They insured it up to £2.5k and it cost £11 ish


[COLOR=navy]Couriers on the other hand;

DHL

Never had anything but problems with these lot;

Drop It
Hide It
Loose It

Hi Andy, we received your cart couple of days ago. Yes it is between £10.00 and £12.00 for UK, I was talking about things going abroad and the prices they charge. Royalmail is the only company that I know of that will insure item over £500.00 going oversees, but the insurance is expensive, but I guess you have to think what is more important. Your £2500.00 cart being insured or not? Anyway, we normally charge around £10.00 for return with insurance in the UK. I'm sure Dom will be in contact with you in a few days.

Natalie

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

Cheers Natalie

Look forward to hearing from you.

Andy

[RichB]

had a 2 bad experiences with myhermes, both items i packed and labelled well were kicked from one end of the country to the other... beyond belief just how badly damages an amp i sent was, havent ruled out mischief on behalf of the buyer tho. anyway, aftersales service amounted to "you want us to do what about it?". my confidence in their service was really knocked when the spotty kid who looked as if he's barely passed his driving test, and probably shouldnt be responsible with other people's possessions, arrived to collect the parcel in his beat up old fiesta loaded to the brim with other people's stuff... i nearly said 'nevermind mate I've changed my mind' had it not been for the money already paid, on reflection i wished i had.

Percelforce 48 however has always been reliable, as they ruddy should be at the price, £15 avg for an amp, insured up to £100. disgrace.

[MartinT]

excellent BUT only providing the parcel arrives and does so in one piece - having seen their aftersale service for damaged in transit in action I wouldn't go near this operation ever again.

To balance that, I did once have to make a claim against a lost delivery and Parcel2Go treated me very professionally, seeing it all the way through to compensation.

[keiths]

I too found Parcel2go very efficient when I made a compensation claim. An Arcam P85 power amp that I sold on eBay arrived damaged (the buyer hadn't really helped matters by neglecting to tell me he would be working abroad from the day after he paid for the amp - DHL made about 5 attempts to deliver it to him during his month away, during which the package got battered beyond belief).

[Clothears]

I used to ship everything via Parcel2Go using the DHL 48 Economy service, competitive rates and without fail always delivered next working day in one piece. DHL sold that particular service to Yodel and I used their service once, and once only. Absolutely dreadful service from start to finish, how that amp arrived in one piece is a miracle, the buyer actually sent me photographs of a footprint on the box. Luckily I always double box everything so the outer box had taken the brunt of the damage.

Since that experience I switched to Interparcel and use their economy service for any domestic UK deliveries, which is via UPS. So far, so good. UPS have been reliable, prompt and the packages are easily tracked on their website.

Don't forget Parcel2Go, Interparcel etc. are just "middlemen", they are only as good as the courier you ultimately choose to go with. The one thing that makes me prefer Interparcel to Parcel2Go is that when something does go awry or you need to change something, you can actually speak to someone at Interparcel. When it all went wrong with Parcel2Go/Yodel I was forced to go on line and complain/sort via the keyboard, when I was actually very keen to speak to someone.

[Reid Malenfant]

One other advantage of using a postal service were the item must be signed for, is you the sender then have proof the item was received. I guess this is really more for selling on Ebay than on AOS but I suppose better safe than sorry might be the order of the day here as well.

Yes, I remember purchasing a DCX2496 from France a little while ago... The ebay seller sent it via Fedex & Fedex got in touch with me to inform me it should be here on the Friday following the sale So as you do I kept logging into the tracking page & discovered it was in the UK on the Thursday morning & apparently out for delivery I was getting all excited...

Until I saw on the website that it said it had been delivered

I managed to find a phone number for Fedex & got in touch to ask them what the hell was going on. At that point no-one knew so I was fed a load of cobblers

When I finally did find out from someone assigned to the case I found out it had been delivered to the correct address, but in the wrong town & county! Luckily the chap that received it was honest & he to got in touch with Fedex & it got back into the system - but I couldn't track it as it was already marked as delivered. In the end it got to me on the following Monday....


Moral of the story is tracking may not mean it has been delivered to the correct address