Courier Companies to the UK

pod

Can anyone recommend any courier companies who offer competitive prices for delivering parcels up to 10kg from Ireland to the UK?

Creamy Goodness

i think sercurior is the cheapest courier in ireland but if it's a once off they'll fleece ya

ASTRACLUB

go for www.anpost.ie
they are the best
and cheapest

Specky

From my own experience I've found the answer to the question of which courier is the best is far from black and white.

It's reasonably straight forward to do a price comparison between the different companies and find the one that's cheap for you however you may also want to consider:

1. what levels of service the company offers....do they do a rapid guaranteed next day air service and a not so rushed few days standard service...some do either one or the other

2. do they consider any address outside Dublin to be on the other side of the planet...a lot of companies can guarantee deliveries next day to/from anywhere in Dublin but require an extra day if you're outside the greater Dublin area....even if you're in Kildare/Louth/Meath/Wicklow type places that border on the City

3. find out how much notice you have to provide the courier when you want to get a parcel collected....again this will depend on whether you're inside or outside Dublin...I'm only in Kildare but FedEx wanted an extra day's notice to collect from us...

4. discuss fuel surcharges...some companies give you a fixed price list and invoice you off this depending on wieght and destination country then they slap on a whole bunch of surcharges and send you the bill a week or more after you've received the original invoice...usually isn't for much but it's bloody annoying and hard on the book keeping

5. make sure the company you use offer some sort of reasonably automated tracking facility so you can get the information you need without having to rely on some dick in the warehouse to try to find things for you...

6. find out precisely how the insurance works before you start using them. Some don't insure your parcels at all and you have to pay extra which takes away the competitive advantage these companies appear to display.


These are just my opinions, some may be out of date but we've tried a fair few couriers and this is what I've found:

UPS - reliable as long as you don't ask them to do something out of the ordinary in which case you can guarantee they'll screw it up. Very good on lin tracking system. A bit pricey but they do refund if they don't make the guaranteed delivery. We use them for urgent stuff

FedEx - not priced too badly but they have a very inflexible service and consider anywhere outside Dublin as bandit country

Securicor - Pretty good, reliability can be a bit suspect. Pricing is quite good but watch the insurance.

An Post / SDS - ok if you don't care if the parcel gets there or not....and if you have a dispute and want to make a claim you might as well forget it. Tracking is naff. Pricing is ok, not that good though and you have to be careful about which service you choose otherwise it could take forever. At least you can pay as you go in cash at the post office

NightLine - pretty good, reliable and cheap within Ireland. Haven't tried them to the uk

Interlink - the kings of parcel loss...or so we found



I'd have to say the quality of the courier is highly dependant on the quality of the driver who covers your area. Some are compete w*nkers. Some are good conscientious people.....but a lot are complete w*nkers!

pod

thanks very much Specky for the detailed info. Very much appreciated!

Have you heard of a courier called "Citylink" or possibly they're called "Initial Citylink"?

I'm not sure if they're in Ireland, but I know someone in the UK who uses them and he says they've very competitive prices and are very efficient.

I'll give NightLine a call, as you were saying they offer competitive prices. And if you know anything about Citylink, let me know.

Thanks again!