The Royal Mail, with its latest price restructuring, is continuing on its remorseless path of driving its customers towards the opposition and committing Hari Kiri as a business.
Personally I would rather use Royal Mail, as the post office is close to me and I don't then have the hassle of booking a courier and waiting for the pickup...(and contrary to popular belief, over 16 years I have found them to be very reliable)
However, this morning I posted a set of handlebars which weighed under a kilo packed...but unfortunately exceeded by a few mm the arbitary length limit set between one price scale and the next.
The result...?...Over £11 for a set of bars to be posted to a UK address...Or nearly 50% of the value of the contents if you look at it another way (the way that customers do)
Obviously I have to seek alternatives, which will inevitably be more inconvenient and waste more of my time..or maybe I should just base my choice of the products I make on the weight and length for postage..?...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Ian I am using Parcels2go.com more and more lately, and completely book on line. For instance, a complete set of Triumph girder forks to London was just £6.50 and a Triumph front frame to Austria for £24, and for an extra 30p they sent me a text and email to say they had arrived. I have overcome the issue with waiting in for a courier by electing to take my parcel to one of the many thousands of retail pick up points (corner shops). Fortunately for me there are two within 1/2 mile of my house. Hearmes and UDL. I wonder if there's one in your village?

Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

No such luck Ron...The nearest one to me is Plymouth..10 miles or more..
The couriers are more cost effective but I could spend half my life waiting for them to pick up parcels...it's a problem..Though it doesn't apply to every parcel....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

there is a courier system whereby you can leave a parcel at a local pickup point.Can't remember the name now.

As for the Post Office it's just part of the propaganda drive to get folk to believe the crap about how much better it will be under privatisation.

It won't
it'll get worse and more expensive.

all the profits will go abroad, like all the otehr privatisation cons.

the worst courier firm of all is Yodel, there is a campaign on line to stop Amazon etc using them. The most complained about courier firm ever,really bad.

Its not so much the poor sods working for them as the fact they get paid stupid money, 60p a drop, you got to go some to make a living out in the sticks at that rate.

Which is why down my lane all I get is some polish/romanian/latvian bloke in a van sticking his clip board under my nose and pointing at the address he can't find at 9 o/c at night.

I'll stick with the PO out of bloodymindedness.

Ebay/Amazon/on line trade in general has been a god send to the Post Offcie, thats why they are using it as a stick to beat us with.
Privatisation of the ROYAL Mail is very unpopular, but the 1% don't care.

What gets me is that the Post Office was never meant to make a profit, it was set up to keep the Empire going, since when has it had to become profitable, not just self sufficient? The girl at my Post office told me that it has been trying to make a profit to enable it to be sold, does that mean that we'll get a tax reduction for subsidising it when it was making a loss? I suppose that when its sold off they will only care about making a profit for its shareholders above providing a decent service, don't worry when it does go tits up a year or so after selling it off we can subsidise it again when it comes back into public ownership!
I too Ian got caught out by the tape measure trick they now do, so I jumped on the parcel and asked them to re measure it, it then passed the "test", but seriously this only encourages people to skimp on the wrapping resulting in more damage to parcel contents, but don't worry they have that covered too, by lowering the automatic insurance level and apparently they now pay that out in stamps to tie you into the service!

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com

there was a small article on TV about the post office it said that most of there profit was from parcel service but there was a problem as they needed to enlarge there transport but were not doing it I must say I use parcel2go never had trouble with collection some times it seem so cheap you wonder if you have got it wrong sent a triumph Bonneville wind screen to Spain for £7 I don't know which service you were using but cant you send larger item via parcel post

email (option): roger.beck@node6.com

The problem with couriers is that they usually deliver while I am at work. I can go to the post office sorting office (about 4 miles away) and pick it up. Many couriers do not even have depots (Yodel) where you can collect or leave it with a neighbour which, if they are on a different shift can take days to collect. Give me ROYAL MAIL any day.

Yodel will chuck it over a fence if you are not in, doesn't even have to be your fence.
They have been known to leave stuff in a 'safe' place, like a wheelie bin, on collection day.

I now use a company called parcel monkey.These use a variety of couriers including royal mail!! Thing is I have priced packages on the parcel force website and the parcel monkey site and the difference in prices is staggering and both offer the same service for same package.When I use the parcel monkey services I always choose Parcel force service as I know they have depots where you can pickup your packages if your,e not about during normal working hours. As for royal mail post offices they are going down hill fast with their service and prices! Best thing about parcel monkey is the service I choose is always tracked and cheaper than using the royal mail website prices. Dave

Hi. I'm new to this forum and only became aware of it when I bought a G3L from John Tinley. I've been selling lots of Golf MK1 Gti parts of sometimes strange shapes and sizes to clear my garage so I can get both that and my WD/CO in the garage to start the rebuild. I've been using Myhermes.co.uk who only seem to worry about the weight of a parcel not the dimensions and have also proved very reasonable on price and reliable too. Hope you find the info useful.

email (option): paul@holmesfamily.ws

Hi Paul

Did you buy John's Egyptian G3L?

Hi Lee. Yes, that's right. I've been looking for a G3L for a while.
John has been very helpful, and I hope soon to be able to get down to the rebuild. I've got to sort my WD/CO out as well as they are both supposed to be going to Normandy next year.
Regards.
Paul

email (option): paul@holmesfamily.ws