Question for UK traders

Postal services, franking, etc

[holtyboy]

I'm assisting my wife in setting up her online business. I wanted to know what other traders in the UK are doing about posting parcels / packets that are between 250g and 2kg in weight.

She needs delivery times of about 2 working days, but doesn't need it to be guaranteed. She will probably be dispatching 50 or so parcels per month to start with.

Is Royal Mail the only viable option for this or do you recommend looking at any other carriers?

Also, is it worth looking into franking? From a professionalism point of view this seems to be desirable, but I have no idea about the costs of doing this.

Thanks for any pointers you can offer.

/adam.

[Old Welsh Guy]

Hi There, Holtyboy,

depending on your volume, the royal mail will do a special deal, call them to find out.

Business post is also a good option, although I have been out of this for a while.

good luck in your venture.

OWG

[Essex_boy]

If its internal UK mail go for franking - It cost me around £500 to buy the machine etc but its worth it.

I have found the Royal mail to be miserable lil devils to deal with to the point ive had post offices refuse to take my parcels (?!?!?).

Always get a proof of posting or beeter stil a recorded delivery receipt its worth it in the end.

[jweighell]

I use Royal Mail for items less than 500g and Business Post for everything else. For a 2kg parcel, Business Post would charge £4.65 + VAT for a 48 hour service, which is pretty good if you ask me.

I hire a franking machine for around £20 + VAT a month.

[andy_boyd]

We use Royal Mail Special Delivery for all UK orders, but then most of our packages are either 1kg or below. We have a franking machine here and Royal Mail comes round to pick up every afternoon, so it is very handy indeed.

[holtyboy]

Thanks for the comments guys. I'll look into the Business Post option.

Regarding franking, what is the real business driver to either buy or rent one of these machines vs just sticking stamps? Is it purely a "professional finish" or are there other drivers?

/adam.

[Essex_boy]

Back in the 90's I ran a holiday firm and we used to send out around 400 1st class letter a week - all stamps.

Franking is quicker and much nicer for the customer to see we even had our own logo on the franking stamp.

[chris2giny2]

if you are spending over 10k pa on postage get a royalmail credit account - you just rubber stamp your parcels and give them a list of parcel weights