Hi,
Does anyone here need to ship parcels on a daily basis I am looking at setting up a ecommerce site and on the an post website it seems fairly expensive to ship a parcel, any recommendations?
I find it hard to understand how the site in the UK can offer free shipping on a lot of items and the shipping in Ireland is so expensive. I know I could offer free shipping on items over X amount but still the minimum i have found for a parcel is €7.30 (on GLS thanks for the link) doesnt this still seem excessive? I am opening a store that will sell household gifts what do you think if i offer free shipping over €75 in your opinion is this too high an amount to get free shipping?
It certainly seems reasonable. Shipping in Ireland has gone crazy, eBay used to have a parcel card with AnPost where you saved a certain amount of money but that has been withdrawn too.
Perhaps you could get an account with one of the companies and they might give you a special price.
Not sure if you would be shipping out of Ireland but if it's just domestic, you should check out [broken link removed]. They're incredibly cheap - I honestly don't know how they can make a profit. You buy a book of tickets in advance and then use 1 ticket per box. They have discounted prices for within your county and then another price for the rest of Rep Irl. The price per ticket depends on your usage.
Thanks for all the replies its much appreciated, if i was to ship something that would fit in a normal a4 envelope would you go with just normal post or still use someone like fastway?
I mix & match between An Post & Fastway Couriers. To send a letters, A4 envelopes and small parcels it is cheaper to use An Post. For anything a little bit bigger I use Fastways. They have a rate for Dublin & one for the country and they can supply their own shipping bags.
As posted above Fastway seem to be the best budget option. I dont think people expect free shipping when buying online especially if the goods are heavy. If you begin to ship large volumes an post will give you a discount if you ring them.
Just so you have an idea of prices.... A4 envelope (100g) by standard post costs 95c (€3 for 1Kg) and our rates with Fastway are €7.50 for our county and €10 rest of Eire. I suppose it depends on the value of the goods but Fastways charges are very reasonable.
I used to have a business in the UK. I used to send a lot of parcels out but beware I had a lot of hassle with the Parcel carriers. They said they would deliver next day but this was not true. If the customer was not there they would take it back to the depot
(they should of dropped a card through the letter box to inform the customer to ring the depot ). I always provided a phone number to ring the customer if they could not locate the address but they could not be bothered to ring or they said they tried to ring the customer but no answer.Don't forget If a customer is not happy with their purchase it will have to come back to you ( you would have to pay for this ).You will have to get the carriers to go in and collect at their convenience ( not much chance there ). Also When you tell your customer it will be there next day and they take a day off work and wait in lo and behold the parcel goes missing at the sorting office because someone put it in the wrong bin but dont worry you can ring the customer and tell him the problem and ask him if he could take another day off work. My advice don't bother take it yourself less hassle.Oh one last point I used to send out mirrors not pointing fingers but one of them went missing and was never found. I had to go through the carriers insurance 24 weeks later I was paid out not the full amount mind you they just paid out for the cost of the materials used to make the mirror.
at giftmaster.ie & casinoshop.ie we've used fastway for 3 years with only a couple of small problems and none since the middle of last year. As well as low prices for parcels (€6.30) they also have a satchel service for €4.95 and from later this month they are starting a UK service for under a tenner!
if anyone from fastway is looking at this, commission in a brown envelope please.