Outsourcing postage and packaging of product orders recieved online

paulig

Hi,

I'm starting a website that sells a product online. Now basically I'm wondering if there is anybody in Ireland who offers a service whereby I can recieve the orders online to my website and have a third party deal with the orders i.e. put product in envelope and post it to the customer.

Basically to save me the hassle of having to deal with individual orders on a day to day basis.

I'd anticipate that business would be slow to start with but as things pick up it'd be great if I didn't have to deal with this side of things personally.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Wats_in_a_name

Storage plus does that for €8.50 per order ex VAT and that includes delivery to Ireland by Courier. I looked into it but it was cost effective.

http://www.storageplus.ie/

paulig

Wats_in_a_name wrote: »

Storage plus does that for €8.50 per order ex VAT and that includes delivery to Ireland by Courier. I looked into it but it was cost effective.

http://www.storageplus.ie/

Hmm ya that looks like the kind of thing I'd be talking about alright, 8.50 per order definitely rules that option out for me though. Maybe I'll be able to sort something cheaper. Good to know it exists at the same time though.

Mickk

How much cheaper are you hoping to get it for? A courier will cost you 6-8 euro per delivery depending on your quantity and then you have to rent a warehouse, insure it, staff it and buy/hire a forklift. 8.50 sounds like a great deal.

RoadKillTs

8.50 is very good! You would pay that for a courier alone.

J_Wholesale

Depending on the product, if you outsource packing, then you're also outsourcing quality control. Packing is the final stage at which defective items can be caught before they reach the consumer, and for many products will be the only time that every single item will be individually handled. I'd think twice about farming out such an important element of your order process.

Wats_in_a_name

There is no tracing for the packages as far as I know & the submit the order page is quite basic. You have to do 1 order at a time.

I found it far cheaper for me to pack items myself & send by Fastway.

paulig

Mickk wrote: »

How much cheaper are you hoping to get it for? A courier will cost you 6-8 euro per delivery depending on your quantity and then you have to rent a warehouse, insure it, staff it and buy/hire a forklift. 8.50 sounds like a great deal.

See what I'm supplying is small enough to post, which if memory serves would cost around 75c a pop.

RoadKillTs

See what I'm supplying is small enough to post, which if memory serves would cost around 75c a pop.

Would you not need to use registered post?

Wats_in_a_name

Registered post is not neccessary for low value orders. <€30 or so.

Mickk

paulig wrote: »

See what I'm supplying is small enough to post, which if memory serves would cost around 75c a pop.

Well then you need to talk to storage plus and get a tailored quote, they won't charge 8.50 if you aren't using a courier, probably more like 2-3 per order. Tbh if the stuff is that small why bother outsourcing it, it could probably be done from a spare room?

Wats_in_a_name

It's a good point. I sell on eBay & online from a spare room and to be honest I think it is quicker than using storage plus.

I brought a bunch of paper with built in address label & print off the orders once a day. Pop the items in a envelope, put on label & stamps and it's ready to go.

Storage plus you need to copy the address, item code, your account number & phone number in a form. And you can only do 1 order at a time

Joey the lips

In a nut shell what are you looking to pay???? For example I could have you drop all your parcels to me every monday and I could ramble down the post office and get a special business rate on postage. These rates from my understanding however usually come from the franking machine providers.

The min courier service is usually around 8.50 but pm me with an offer and if i can do it I will.

paulig

Well lads, you've given me alot of very useful information here. I think what I'm going to go with is the spare room option to start with and when (if) things start to move along a bit better we'll consider the storage plus option, with the possibility of negotiating a tailored quote as suggested. It will also definitely be a viable option if we diversify into a more expensive product range, at the moment using an post will be fine. But this will all be contingent on the initial idea taking off.

The whole idea behind outsourcing it is more a lifestyle choice than purely a money thing. And I still have a real job etc.

Thanks for the advice.

BarryM3

Hi Paul,

Barry here (MD of Storage Plus).

Give me a call tomorrow and I can give you a bespoke quote, we have many many options.

We're currently handling approx 300 packages a day, every customer has a different set of requirements. We can also label your packages with your details.

Our customers range from people who send small envelopes, right up to pallet loads

What is show on the website is only basic info, although maybe I should update that.

With regard to the order submit page, we have new software which is ready for launch that is very very good.

BarryM3

J_Wholesale wrote: »

Depending on the product, if you outsource packing, then you're also outsourcing quality control. Packing is the final stage at which defective items can be caught before they reach the consumer, and for many products will be the only time that every single item will be individually handled. I'd think twice about farming out such an important element of your order process.

This is a legitimate concern, and one that I can appreciate..however, I can hand on heart say that we treat all products with great care..In many cases we have found errors that our clients (the seller) have missed. Also, as it is our core business we are used to handling and controlling stock, using not only trained staff (most of whom are family members as its a family business) but also the correct equipment.

Wats_in_a_name wrote: »

There is no tracing for the packages as far as I know & the submit the order page is quite basic. You have to do 1 order at a time.

I found it far cheaper for me to pack items myself & send by Fastway.

We do have full traceablity, with €400 worth of insurance on every package included for the €8.50

Wats_in_a_name wrote:

Storage plus you need to copy the address, item code, your account number & phone number in a form. And you can only do 1 order at a time

We can handle the submission of orders a number of ways. You could send us one email per day with all that days order details and we can fulfill from that

Wats_in_a_name wrote: »

It's a good point. I sell on eBay & online from a spare room and to be honest I think it is quicker than using storage plus.

Storage plus you need to copy the address, item code, your account number & phone number in a form. And you can only do 1 order at a time

Orders that are received before 3pm are dispatched same day, when using the €8.50 domestic courier service this means that your packages are delivered in most cases the day after they were bought. In the world of online selling this is exceptional and in fact it is one area where all our users have received positive feedback from their customers.

BarryM3

Joey the lips wrote: »

For example I could have you drop all your parcels to me every monday and I could ramble down the post office and get a special business rate on postage. These rates from my understanding however usually come from the franking machine providers.

Unless you are sending hundreds of packages a day you will not get 'special business rates' franking machine of no franking machine.