Postal Delays - Alternatives to An Post?

le_girl

I run an online business and ship a lot of packages each week via An Post. This Christmas I've had so many issues with delays (that might even turn out to be lost orders) that I'm seriously considering looking for an alternative.

I ship small, light items in large envelopes via Standard Post mostly to the UK and beyond. This works out at €2.05 per envelope which is very reasonable but has been so unreliable lately and An Post have turned out to be almost impossible to get any help or even a reply from.

I've had a ton of complaints and queries about orders that haven't turned up in time for Christmas which were sent as early as the 2nd of December and am faced with replacing all of these items.

I send orders three times per week usually - anywhere from 20 to 100 envelopes at a time.

Does anyone have any ideas of alternative services that might work? I don't really need a pickup service, I'm happy to drop them off. I've heard of City Post but am looking for other services to compare. I'm based in Limerick City which I'm guessing might rule out some options.

Any advice at all would be appreciated

_Brian

Must be their partners.
I send a lot of parcels within Ireland via AnPost and never a bother, always delivered and tracking is great.

badboyblast

Hi Le Girl, what type of value items are you shipping, you always have to match the price of the item to the service you choose for shipping.

If you are shipping a low value item and using regular post then if 10% of your items get lost then putting another one in the post free of charge won`t cost you too much because you are paying very little for the postage.

TNT have revived themselves in the recent year and offer a good documents service under 500 grammes to the UK and based on the amount of packages you are sending I think you could get them to about 13 -14 Euros an envelope on a 1-2 day service to the UK from Ireland.

Niteline also do the same service for parcels and you should look into getting some prices from them also for your bigger parcels.

le_girl

Each envelope I ship is worth about €15 - €40. Standard post has worked well enough so far (apart from the odd issue) and is affordable at €2.05 per order usually.

There seem to be other options around for courier services for larger parcels and express shipping but they work out to be a lot more expensive and honestly more than I need. Standard Post is fast enough normally but it's been so unreliable lately.

I've sent some more important orders via Registered and Express Post over Christmas also (for about €7 - €10 per envelope) and in some cases Express Post was slower than Standard Post and tracking info for Registered post was so basic it was almost useless.

Up until now it's been worth the small cost to replace the odd missing item which is to be expected but the delays this month have taken a huge amount of time to deal with. Standard Post to the UK should take about 3-4 days but in some cases haven't turned up after 3-4 weeks and that's very frustrating, especially around Christmas and getting any help from them has been impossible.

Maybe there's not enough demand for small businesses shipping this volume of light/small parcels and An Post have the monopoly on this kind of service, it's possible.

jimmii

At that volume you should contact your local business manager. once you are shipping over 20 items a week they will set up something just for you. i use the prepay labels makes it a lot cheaper for what we send.

badboyblast

jimmii wrote: »

At that volume you should contact your local business manager. once you are shipping over 20 items a week they will set up something just for you. i use the prepay labels makes it a lot cheaper for what we send.

Are these prepay labels from An Post?

jimmii

badboyblast wrote: »

Are these prepay labels from An Post?

Yes you can only get them if you are in Dublin though.