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With the danger of wildcat strikes, the Royal Mail is fast losing its grip on the mail monopoly and several suppliers have tried to provide a service to fulfil the gap. Although the Royal Mail remains the cheapest method of sending small packets and letters in the UK, with the price of a first class stamp being the same whether you are sending a letter to the end of your road, or to the other end of the country, when it comes to larger parcels, there is quite a lot of competition. The Royal Mail website at first glance appears quite busy, but if you let your eyes adjust to the layout, you will find all that you need right there on the front page, including a postcode checker which allows you to check the postcode for any address, or get the address of a property from any postcode (you have to register to use this service, but it is free), details on mail marketing, stamp collecting and postal prices for deliveries worldwide up to 2Kg. The postal prices includes a calculator to allow you to enter the weight of what you are sending and the destination in order to calculate the postage, but it is often easier to just look at the various price tables to get the information you need. It is also very helpful when sending mail overseas, as you are able to check which price zone the destination country comes under. Any parcels over 2Kg have to be sent using Parcelforce, which, although a division of the Royal Mail is run as a separate business. Indeed, Royal Mail offer a standard parcels delivery service (7-10 days delivery inland) which is directly in competition for parcels up to 2Kg. Anything over that weight has to be sent Parcelforce. The Parcelforce Website is very similar to the Royal Mail one, providing much of the same tools and user interface. This provides a common platform for anyone wishing to price a parcel or track its progress through the system and the ability to download the latest price tables in Microsoft Excel format is also very useful. Parcelforce provide an economy service to certain overseas destinations, although you have to be careful as to whether any compensation and online tracking is included in these prices - the supplied postal calculator can be very helpful here as it allows you to easily compare prices of the various services at the same time.
Costs at the time of writing are (exclusive of VAT): All services carry £50 compensation, expandable up to £1000 cover at extra cost. £5.99 within the UK for 3/4 day value delivery up to 25Kg £19.99 for deliveries to Europe within 3-4 working days (up to 10Kg)
£37.99 for deliveries to USA and Canada within 4
working days (max weight of 10Kg) These prices are highly competitive, particularly the service to USA and Europe, which has recently been reduced. Although it is not possible to purchase additional compensation (unlike Parcelforce), there is a special high value goods service for the UK. Certain items cannot be sent using this service (mainly items containing glass - generally the same as Parcelforce). The website is extremely clear and easy to navigate, although it would be nice to be able to enter a country to check which international service is required. On top of this, there is also a 10% discount offered on the shipping costs if you include a link to Parcel2Go in any eBay auctions and send the item using Parcel2Go. To send a parcel, you need to enter the details of where the parcel is to be collected from and where it is to be sent to (you can use a postcode look-up to make this easier) and enter your credit card details (unfortunately the payment service is operated by WorldPay and you cannot store your payment details). The site prepares a shipping label which you can print off and attach to your parcel, as well as online tracking facilities to allow you to check progress as your parcel passes through the system. One problem many people find when shopping online, is that there are plenty of sites based in the USA who will not ship outside of the country. In order to address this issue, Parcel2Go have added a new service which provides the ability to use them as an American postal address, which allows you to order items from within the USA from American websites - they will then deliver the items to you - you pay £9.99pa (plus VAT) to rent the US address and then prices are from £29.50 (plus VAT) for the item to be shipped to the UK, depending on weight - you are able to consolidate parcels in order to make this as cost effective as possible. We have sent several parcels using this service and have found it to be extremely reliable, easy to use and their customer service is also excellent. We have no hesitation in recommending this service - the main problem is sometimes in getting the packages collected when you expect - although Parcel2Go have now added guaranteed collection services to their range. We have certainly have not experienced lost items, or packages where some of the contents happen to "fall out" which appears to be par for the course with the Royal Mail of late. .
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