Couriers and Shipping

[Jordi]

I know a lot of trading goes on on the website and for some the idea of shipping being expensive is a bit of an off put.

I have now successfully sent parts all over, as far afield as Malta (yes, it did make it there) It's not as expensive as you may think.

Thought i'd reccomend a few websites i use.

http://www.carpartcouriers.co.uk/
I find these the cheapest for individual heavy items including diffs, transfer boxes and wheels and tyres.

http://www.directcouriersolutions.co.uk/
I use these for packaged parcels thats are not listed as specific items by carpartcouriers including seats, individual engine parts, glass items.

http://www.myhermes1.co.uk/
For smaller items upto 15kg calipers, pulleys, shackles. Even cheaper if you drop the item off at a local parcel shop.

http://www.transglobal.org.uk
More for registered business users. I use this for international shipments as it links me direct to the couriers website and compares all the major firms (TNT, DHL, UPS).

Larger items that require palletising can be shipped quite economically on one of many pallet networks. Cheapest i have come across so far are:-
http://www.palletforce.com/
http://www.fortecpallet.com/
http://www.palletonline.co.uk/

Palletonline is just an agent. The other two are actual firms. You just find your local depot and phone them direct. They take the pallet to a central hub where a depot local to the delivery point collects it. All i can say is these can be trial and error. Your local depot may be brilliant but the delivery depot may put it on their warehouse and forget about. It happens!

Prices can be as low as £45 for an economy pallet and they can go up to as much as some stupid people will pay. It all depends on the delivery address, most of the pallet firms require at least a post code to provide an accurate quote. I know not much big stuff gets sent between us. Might come in handy at some point though.

Thought it might be handy for those who have a few items to send every now and then. Also some sellers don't want the hassle of organising a courier but may parcel an item up if the buyer does the rest.

Thought i would add this too. When shipping items many people including myself add a little extra to some items compared to if the item were to be collected. Example is a transfer box. These are, in my experience shipped by weight. Draining a box, wrapping it in protective foam and sealing it to prevent any oil residue leaking out is not a super-quick job and does require the purchase of packaging materials.

I have had no issues with any of the above and i'm fairly sure they all took paypal.

[turbo-tom]

normal i just use post office/parcel force there getting pricey now!

www.pacel2go.com is good

[Jordi]

A few people suggested parcel to go or parcel monkey to me but they always came out a bit pricey.

Royal mail and parcel force are just having a laugh!

[ScottieJ]

I always use myhermes for smaller bits whatever you do NEVER use Yodel

[trotter]

nice one jordi.

worth making it a sticky scott?

[twiss]

Nice work there Jordi!

If its light enough I can use work's Fedex sometimes, I think they might get a bit pissed off if I tried to send a diff though!!!