Business account for Post?

gavney1

Hi

Part of my business sells some stuff through our website (not a huge amount about 2K worth per month). At the moment we are paying Fastway or An Post (generally Fastway is cheaper but not always) to deliver the goods.

I can't seem to get any info on Bulk deals with An Post, I've gone into the post office but they always fob me off to someone else or give me a phone number that doesn't work.

I was with one of our suppliers in the UK (birmingham) and he sells stuff on his own website. And I was shocked when I heard what he pays on his Business Account with Royal Mail:

To send a pair of runners TO IRELAND FROM UK - it costs £2.04 by Royal Mail

For ourselves, it costs EUR6.00 by An Post or EUR5.00 by Fastway WITHIN IRELAND

Surely, there MUST be something cheaper for business customers if it is nearly 3 times costlier to send something within Ireland than to get someone to post it from the UK???

Thanks

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Unfortunately not, wages and the price of running a business in the UK are a lot lower and the Royal Mail systems seem to be far superior / reliable compared to An Post. A €6 an post delivery will probably have no tracking or proof of delivery. Given the leniency the guards give fraudsters here and An posts less than 100% delivery success rate, customers will claim they didn't get the package and you will have to refund the full cost. Then again the UK business sending non-registered deliveries will have this issue also.

gavney1

thanks Ronan

You mind me asking if you use An Post/ some courier for the Costume shop?

*or please PM me if that's info you want to keep private

thanks

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Hi Gavney,

I think it's better to post here so others can possibly learn / get some ideas from what we do.

We use a combination of couriers and two days a year we use An Post - simply because most couriers finish business on Christmas eve and don't get back till 2nd of Jan so on the 28th and 29th of Dec we use private drivers and An Post out of necessity.

Some couriers are better than others for certain area's or services. We ship internationally and have a Saturday morning option. These services are with different companies to our Standard and Express shipping options.

I think its a real shame that An Post isn't more competitive for deliveries, but they have been loosing out business to couriers for some time and many of the big businesses Amazon etc, are moving over to couriers rather than An Post so I think prices are more likely to go up than down. Put it this way if it wasn't propped up from the government it would be going bust as the business model sucks.

But comparing Ireland to the UK isn't so straight forward as people make out. UK retail shoppers don't have to fork out €8.10 to street park in the city center like Dublin / Cork folk do, because the average and minimum wages are higher here people do value their time a little more and in my opinion don't really mind paying for delivery if they get good service. If they do order from the UK the expense associated with returning the product if they need to and the delivery length can be off putting, especially in your business (which i'm guessing is shoes right??)


Hope that helps.