Best courier?

Not sure if this topic should be here or in General Chat but here goes....

Who is the best courier for shipping speakers? I've used parcel2go in the past for various bits of gear and they've never let me down and the prices are fine but the price is per box so whereas £21 for sending an amp or something is fine, £42 for a pair of speakers is on the very steep side.

Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt.

 

In my experience (lost, late deliveries, steel toecap boot holes in the sides of boxes) they are all BAD! Toss a coin and hope for the best is all I can offer.

 

Agreed that they are all bad - I'd single out DHL as an outfit which I have had particularly bad experience with.

 

Chap

A private punter who is sending just one or two Parcels will always be better off using Parcelforce.

Regards

Mick...........22 years in the trade.

 

Parcelforce 48hr is £27.45 per box. Parcel2go is £18.99+VAT for next day so the latter are still looking the favourites.

Matt.

 

Matt

Insurance ?

 

Sorry, should have mentioned that price (£18.99+VAT) is for their 'High Value Goods' service and includes insurance of up to £2K.

Matt.

 

Matt

How far away is the couriers depot from the destination address.

If they cannot deliver it because the customer is out of the house, he has to travel, himself, to their depot to collect it. Distances of 30 miles are not uncommon. I admit this is his problem not yours.

With PF, it is usually with a few miles.

Regards

Mick

 

Hmmm Sh..City Link springs to mind there. They are the absolute worst! They turned up everyday for a week to deliver a parcel even though I left note after note to say I wouldnt be there (as I have a job funnily enough) and to leave it with my neighbour. I even rang the depot pleading with them but they wouldnt change the rules. They even made two more attempts to deliver! In the end I had to travel to the depot to collect.

Thats what narks me, you have to pay for the 'ease' of courier delivery but have to collect it yourself early on a Saturday morning 6 days later. Gits

 

Puma, if you knew you weren't going to be in you should ahve had it sent to work hehe

Mick, in my experience, PF are amongst the worst. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that somewhere in the country they might employ people who know what they're doing and actually care about their customers... just that isn't here

All of them are the same in this regard, though. You should hear the things i've heard about Amtrak (some of it would make you blind), but my local depot are great City Link also, my local lot are fine. DHL/Securicor, while my local lot are great at picking things up (thank you parcel2go) they're quite bad for not bothering to deliver things (I was in and he didn't leave a bloody note!)... PF round here are crap, but the posties are great

Hmmm... kinda reads like a rant, doesn't it?

 

Hmm thats fine but a lot of the local couriers wont actually deliver to my place of work. A particulary large employer in the city. Plus my employer takes a dim view of personal parcels being handled by their postal staff. Further more a lot of companies dont allow stuff to be sent to locations other than the credit card address.

So no use there.

 

Wasn't a serious suggestion, but I can appreciate the difficulties.

 

Indeed I knew you were pulling my leg, its probably that couriers are the bane of my life. How can something supposedly to make life easier always makes it 1000 times more difficult.

Hohum!

 

Matt,

Mick used to 'Run' Parcel Farce so he maybe baised
We've just switched to using parcels 2 go (Old secericor) now picked up by DHL, hassle free and competitive plus decent back up.All on line too
Timpy sent a pair of LS4's to Lincoln for £12 insured, though the Harb's are some what bigger
Interlink wanted £26 to send an arcam amp to Kent

 

Hmmm. You've not had anything go wrong yet then have you. I've found contacting P2go a PITA and though the non collection of parcels was eventually sorted it's put me off using them.

As has been said the courier's are all about the same for service overall. For instance the local DHL/Securicor people have been great to deal with but somewhere along the line there's a depot that like trashing parcels. I've not had any major problems with any firm I've used to send things but I do pack things properly and usually over pack them, as they will at some point be dropped on the floor.

There are online brokers for Parcel Force aswell and the rates are a lot lower than going direct.

 

Tone

I used to "run" the Royal mail. I had nothing to do with Parcelforce, which although part of the Post Office, was in many ways a competitor. There is a serious overlap between a large letter and a small parcel.

In my heyday, I controlled a budget of £400 million pa, now the only buying I do is about £75 per down at Tesco's. Go on say ahhhhhhhhh.

Regards

Mick the Pensioner.

 

Try www.pharos-international.co.uk I have used them a lot, they are cheap and your items actually go via UPS. Couldn't recommend them highly enough.

 

My g/f Tasha has worked for Interlink/Parceline on the export desk since July.

Interlink and Parceline are part of the same company but are in competition with each other just like Parcelforce and the Post Office.

They handle something like 200,000 packages per day of which about 30 or so go missing or are misdirected. Bar codes/labels come off, or the packages are often incorrectly addressed.

If your goods are insured you put in a claim. If your goods are fragile, and the service you are paying for doesn't cover breakages then it's your loss.

One of her perks is free delivery for personnel (IIRC). So when my next piece of hi-fi is sold, p&p should be included!

 

I prefer my stuff sent from USA by FedEx. I never either had problems with DHL but when sending cheap stuff or gifts they use a sister company for managing all custom formalities. The bill is then high even if the stuff shouldn't have had duties. This statement concerns goods going into Switzerland. Also DHL doesnnn't contact me / my wife and just come by. If nobody's at home you'll receive after 3-4 days a letter saying that the stuff has arrived and that I should contact them!!!

Generally though I never had any problems with these two companies and with Ups.

Sending parcels out of Switzerland there is a special service of the Swiss post which collaborates with TNT. Very reliable and cheap vs. the others but you have to bring the parcel to the local postoffice.

 

Royal Mail - Idiots and thieves!!!!!

I really dont know what has happend. About 4 years ago I used to get two regular deliveries at 8.15am and 2.45pm a day without fail. I couldnt fault them! Then they appointed some fool who brought in a load of 'enhancements to improve the service to the customer' and now I get maybe (I stress maybe) one delivery a day at anytime after 10am and loads of other peoples mail. No wonder people send emails instead. The thing that really annoys me is that this guy will get the sack, pick up about 2million quid in a golden boot and then be appointed CEO of another big firm within the week. How crap do you have to be at the top?
Rant over.