courier & fulfilment advice

[backinthesaddle]

Hello
I have been running an online shop specialising in children's luggage for a year. It has snowballed to the extent that I can no longer cope with the volume of product to store at home and am struggling with fitting post office trips in around 2 young children. I have started drop shipping where possible to get round this but also want to explore using a courier to pick up on a daily or every other day basis and/or storage/fulfilment house. I am at the beginning of my journey on finding out about these options - does anyone have any advice/recommendations? My background is web design/marketing focusing on small businesses so I am happy and confident with growing the business but want to be able to do this without the burgeoning constraints of order processing & fulfilment. Thanks for any advice!

[iaynm]

If you just want to get packages picked up and taken to the post office then this shouldn't cost you much at all. Royal Mail offer that service, or you could strike a deal with a local courier. It ought not to cost more than a few pounds per day, to be honest.

[RawRob]

A daily collection by Royal Mail costs £500 per year (or free if you spend over a certain amount on your account, I think it's around £15,000 per year). If you are sending a large enough volume you can get an account with them and print your own PPI labels which is a good saving on buying stamps at the Post Office.

Rob

[HuggyBear]

Alternatively, you could set up a free account with a company such as P4D

You enter the shipping details online and pick the option best suited for your needs at discounted rates.. and if your lucky, the courier will even pick up the day you book..

[backinthesaddle]

Thanks to Ian and Rob for the post office pick up info. Also thanks for the link to p4d - already I can see I will be able to make cost & time savings using a service like this for sending bulky items like suitcases - the costs are much cheaper than using the Royal Mail / ParcelForce services I have been using.

With regards to lots of smaller items (eg fitting in A4 jiffy bag) does anyone know my best option? Would a courier take small items like this? I typically have about 10 A4 size packets a day. Would I have to have enough to fill a 'post bag'. I am trying to avoid having to organise courier pick ups AND still having to go to the post office.

Does anyone have any input on the warehousing and fulfilment side of things? Thanks for your continued help - much appreciated!

[RawRob]

With regards to lots of smaller items (eg fitting in A4 jiffy bag) does anyone know my best option? Would a courier take small items like this? I typically have about 10 A4 size packets a day. Would I have to have enough to fill a 'post bag'. I am trying to avoid having to organise courier pick ups AND still having to go to the post office.

A courier would take the A4 packets but would probably charge a lot more than Royal Mail. I think to have an account you need to be spending around £5000 per year with them, but it's worth giving them a call anyway to see what they say.

Rob

[backinthesaddle]

Hi if anyone is interested I thought I would let you know how I got on. I have rung round a few couriers including DHL and UKMail. I have settled with UKMail as they often deliver to me so I know the guys anyway to the extent that they will ring/text to see if I am in before they drop off, they are prepared to agree a daily collection time (without having to pay Royal Mail fees!) and if I have to be out at that time I can just drop the whole lot off myself to their local depot without having to worry about impossible parking outside our PO and huge queues. I negotiated a rate that is midway between my 2 most common shipments so I will win some and lose some but the convenience factor is most important here. Also it is 1 rate up to 10kg so for customers with 1 suitcase plus other items in their order it will work out much cheaper.

Re the smaller packets - this is a tricky one. In April UKMail are planning on handling smaller packets - apparently they are the first courier service to have been granted the right to do so by postcomm. Till then I will have to get to the PO too but it will be a lot easier than before! Hope this helps someone else.

[Didi Aslan]

First, decide what services you want to offer. fulfillment company Second, decide how many drivers you are willing to hire. Third, research your market (this should probably be first rather than third....), and start building contacts within your market.Fourth, when you start your company, advertise, advertise advertise.. Go out and do sales calls.Word of mouth will sell your company pretty quickly, so have good service and decent prices