Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: annew on April 02, 2013, 07:15:01 PM
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I feel like I've been mugged. I went to post 2 parcels of snowdrops off today.
Last week my parcel would have cost £3-65, signed for.
My parcel was 35cm x 11cm x 11cm (volume 4.2L) and weighed 300g, so was newly classed as a medium parcel and cost £6-75, signed for.
For the same price my parcel could have been 61cm x 46cm x 46cm (volume 129L) and could have weighed 20kg.
If my parcel was 45cm x 35cm x8cm (volume 12.6L) and weighed 1kg, it would have cost me £4.10, as it would have been a small parcel….
Dear customers, you have been warned. :'( :'(
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Know how you feel - I've just posted two snowdrops this afternoon; UK first class cost me £5.65 to send (I was expecting around £2.70) but interestingly to send one to Germany cost just £3.50...
Perhaps you'll have to say continental customers only, unless they are prepared for a large bill!
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I will have to look at couriers, but then my village post office will lose custom and will probably end up closing. I could get on my bike,
but that might take just a little longer ::)
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I'm not sure if it's particularly the Royal Mail that has taken this attitude to customers (i.e. fleece'em), but for example I ordered a book from a British bookshop which had the postal costs listed on the website as GBP12. but before they would send it they informed me that the extra post because it was a heavy book (> 1 kg) would be another GBP20!
I cancelled and re-ordered from a shop in the USA and they stuck to the postal charge they listed on the web! Came to virtually the same as the original price quoted by the British shop.
cheers
fermi
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Yes I ordered a $3 book in US and postage was around $14. You have to know the maximum weight for price and sometimes it is cheaper to do two parcels - trouble is that unless you are forewarned you have already packaged it.
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Details for the UK are here: http://www.royalmail.com/parcels-made-easy (http://www.royalmail.com/parcels-made-easy)
You need to keep the smallest dimension at 8cm or less to qualify as a 'small parcel'.
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I may have to jump up and down on the parcels with trilliums in then. :-X
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Anybody wanting cheap 10X10X20 boxes >:(
Susan
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We'll have to get somebody to cut them down to size, or we can do it in all this spare time we have.
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Details for the UK are here: http://www.royalmail.com/parcels-made-easy (http://www.royalmail.com/parcels-made-easy)
You need to keep the smallest dimension at 8cm or less to qualify as a 'small parcel'.
Except for the exceptions!
Exceptions apply
The following items are also priced as Small Parcels:
Parcels that measure up to and including:
Length: 16cm and Width: 16cm and Depth: 16cm
Roll or cylinder shaped parcels that measure up to and including:
Length: 45cm and Diameter: 8cm
Roll or cylinder shaped parcels larger than these sizes can be posted as Medium Parcels up to and including 90cm in length and up to and including 104cm (length plus twice the diameter)
Is it any wonder that P.O. Staff are confused? And it doesn't help when most offices seem not to have any leaflets to hand out to frustrated customers.
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Guess all the relatives will be getting Rubik's cubes for Christmas? ::)
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Their websites are terrible too - trying to find actual prices for comparisons (rather than using a calculator) is very difficult. Looks to me like using Royal Mail medium parcel service for sending some of my books might be much cheaper than Parcelforce 48 hour but doing comparisons is annoyingly awkward. I can't see anywhere a simple table of costs for small and medium Royal Mail parcels!
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Martin, have a look at http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/RoyalMail_OurPrices_April2013b.pdf (http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/RoyalMail_OurPrices_April2013b.pdf)
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Thanks Alan. Most of the pages you get directed to make little or no mention of prices, often just a "from...." or an online calculator for your parcel where you put in the weight, no links that I could find to take your to a comprehensive comparison of prices for different weights and different services.
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I've had a similar awakening. Went to the PO to send a book to Australia via surface mail. Found out there is no longer surface mail for a packages over 4 pounds. Cost to send a 4 pound 12 ounce package to Australia is now $56.00
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For a scientific project my lab co-ordinates (and has done for ten years) we send out specially made flight cases containing sampling kit each week, to various parts of the UK. Now we are told that they are too big (by 6cm) to go by Royal Mail at all and we will have to send them by courier or parcel force. We recently bought several thousand pounds worth of stamps for this project, which are now effectively useless. The young lady in charge went somewhat ballistic when she found out....
Also - it turns out that with the new pricing scheme it will actually be cheaper to use a courier anyway, even if we could alter the cases to meet the size criteria.
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Darren, and anyone else who uses a courier - can you recommend a cheap and reliable one?
Maggi, WELL SPOTTED, I hadn't seen that. Won't help with snowdrops/trilliums though.
Martin, I've had similar frustrations with the online calculator - you have to go through the whole menu system every time you want to change the size or weight so comparisons take a VERY long time. Get the hard copy leaflet from the post office, and you can see the limits to each price band straight away so you can get to the incredulous stage much faster!
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Hi Anne,
The best ones are the sites which are agents for all the couriers, that way you don't have to go through the lengthy process of signing a contract and having min. quantities. I use parcels2go. com you can choose which courier to use ie: ups ,parcel force, yodel etc. You fill in details of your parcel then are quoted all the companies prices and choose which one suits you. Ideal for small amounts. I usually choose UPS but it depends where you are sending etc. Some of the companies have drop off points which are cheap if you have one near you.
Hope this helps
Susan
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Thanks, Susan, I appreciate your advice.
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Thanks from me also Susan - we have not yet gone as far as investigating specific couriers and will look at the site you suggest.
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Speaking as a receiver of parcels, I have a horror of Yodel and I'm not alone in this opinion http://saynotoyodel.moonfruit.com/# (http://saynotoyodel.moonfruit.com/#) . Parcelforce is great because they will generally leave the parcel at my local Post Office for collection if there is no one at home, which is vastly more convenient than having to wait-in for a delivery.
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A couple of good ones I use are
www.myhermes1.co.uk (http://www.myhermes1.co.uk)
http://www.collectplus.co.uk/ (http://www.collectplus.co.uk/)
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Alan B
Totally agree with the horror of Yodel. Last month I received 2 packages of bulbs sent from Holland through post NL on separate occasions. They wizard their way to the UK no problem. Then got to our local Yodel office where they failed to deliver and did not even bother to try the telephone number emblazened on the front of the box as I'd asked the senders to do. I had to get the packages both times..............Was having a nice quiet breakfast....now blood pressure raised at the mention of the Y word.
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It's DHL I despise. I told them to go and raffle themselves when they sent me a bill for import tax on a Christmas present. Another time I got a card to say they couldn't deliver a parcel and could I collect it from Perth. I said could they deliver it to my work address, which was Falkirk. They said no, as the Perth office didn't deliver there! >:(