any good nationwide couriers?

A question about : any good nationwide couriers?

I have a small business and use couriers daily, unfortunately they are costing me a small fortune in lost parcels and customer retention. I have used several over the years and they are only as good as their worst driver. In December, I lost so many parcels I decided to stop dispatching the week before Xmas.

Is there a regulatory body for courier services? Can anyone set up a courier firm, lose parcels and still get paid in full?

Best answers:

• Who is (was) your courier?
• Within reason you get what you pay for.
  It really depends on the value of the goods you are sending, but is generally a trade-off between cost and reliability of service.
  No courier can boast 100% reliability but some get much closer than others.
• It might be worth looking at the Ebay board. There are regular threads about carriers on there.
• We use TNT and I haven't had any problems whatsoever in the past eight years I've been using them. I have a depot quite near the office and sometimes drop consignments to them myself. The items we send have a required timed delivery (Adjudication documents) and this has never been missed even in a terrible snowstorm - got quite near the wire that time though.
  On the other hand, the "other party" in an Adjudication (representing the other side of the case) once tried to deliver at 08.30, before we were open, and instead of returning in half an hour took the documents back to their depot, effectively failing to Serve on time. This caused a furore. That company was not TNT but an independent.
• If you are losing that many items with what i am assuming is a high number of different firms then the common denominator is you and your packaging.
  how do you label your consignments. For example, when i worked for TNT i had a customer who srnt items in white hessian sacks. It turns out sticky labels dont stick very well so would fall off mid journey so impossible to deliver.
  what are you sending. How is it packed?
• Hubby sells on ebay and has now even started to send all small packets via myhermes as almost same cost as royal mail but tracking included covered up to Ј50. Depends on the value of your items and speed at which you need delivered. We use these for our free delivery service. States 3-5 working days but they have been delivered lately within 2 days.
• Just a nod about MyHermes - there's a reason they're cheap.
  I was in Frome last week, on an industrial estate. One of the units had a small grotty forecourt, straggly fence, and every morning had half a dozen people with everyday/tired looking cars taking packages from cages, scanning them, and stuffing them in corners of the car (according to their route I guess). Sometimes they'd take stuff out, put it on the icy ground, repack. There was a laminated wet MyHermes sign loosely attached to the rusty fence.
  Maybe other depots are a bit cleaner/fancier, but that one struck me as a bit down-at-heel, not the way I'd want a high-value package to be treated. I'm sure the individual drivers take utmost care, just the sorting through cages in the bitter cold on the forecourt and the road outside didn't seem terribly glamorous.
• Have sent over 10000 with myhermes (approx Ј2.25 per small parcel), overall, happy. They lose a few, but they are fully covered. Not many complaints from buyers. Royal Mail also good (but no compensation, with business account) unless you use their tracked or signed for option (approx Ј3 per small parcel)
• It all depends on what your are shipping, we use a UKmail at the minute for my day job, have used FedEx Citylink TNT and DHL in the past.
  for a charity i'm involed in for ebay sales we use myHermes - no issues, great price, and much easier than the post office.
  What are you sending, whats the weight per item and value and could give you a better idea of who to suggest.
  also i worked for UPS, DHL (propper old pre DP DHL) and others in the past.
• Speaking as a customer receiving parcels, Hermes are absolute ****. That's from multiple experiences, not just a one off.
  DPD are in my opinion the best, they will certainly give your customers the most satisfaction. I doubt they are cheap though. They are the only ones who give a one hour window for delivery to the person being delivered to, and they stick to it.
• I will declare im a courier
  Never ceases to be a source of wonder in that people pay absolute pennys to ship a parcel and wonder why they never get the bespoke service they hoped for . There is a rather large reason you pay 3 quid to ship a parcel 200 miles and its because they get rammed in and treated with distane .
  So if you pay budget do yourself a massive favour and wrap the items to the point you can stand on them or can drop them from 10 foot without damage because ,,, and theres no pride in this ,,,, the polish lads and lasses couldnt care less if you have fragile on the parcel and will bung it into an 8 foot cage sticking 200+ kilos on top of it . They will also throw your item into a van ( most literally ) and theres half a chance your item will have someone stand on it before the days out such is the way these things are set up .
  Myself as an end user as it were and being the public face of the company suffers day after day as you cringe as you hand over miss shaped or damaged items in the hope you wont have to take them back . If i suspect an items damaged i 100% of the time will tell the customer , what then follows is a 10 minute argument as i cant allow the parcel to be opened to inspect it as if they open it its theres . I write on damaged to help people out and i always aim to never damage an item once its in my charge . However when you get retards sending photo frames wrapped in a plastic bag its no surprise when the glass has gone and im then ment to leave this item safe if there not in !!!! not gunna happen on my watch .
  UKmail , good to work for unless its a main hub . one of the better companys to send with
  FedEx you pay through the nose and get a quality service
  Citylink gone now and sure enough i was there xmas eve/day
  TNT , loved working for TNT and once again be assured of a decent service
  DHL . not recently for me but in the past they were very professional
  hermes , cheap , you get what you pay for
  yodel , cheap and without the insurance
  collect+ , this uses other carriers depending on whom collects but expect hermes treatment even if citysprint collect it
  UPS , expensive to send but very good
  Parcelforce , dont whatever you do get a job with them but there very good at getting items to you except when you have 3 postcodes not 1 and 140 drops and 10 collections etc etc , not happy but post with them myself ( small only , heavy go elsewhere )
  Consider this , it cost 8 quid to send a tv through citylink , every day for a week i drove into work and up the back between the trailers was a TV which had somehow fallen off a truck , day 1 it lay on the ground , later that day a truck backed over it . Next day its still there but now its had at least 10 movements over the top of it and its rather ragged ( and flat ) . Over the next 3 days it disintegrated being ground into the general detritious of the place . Sad ? wrong ? last week at the company im working for ( sorry no names ) there were the remains of 2 items dropped between the wagons on the floor , just bits of packaging with a label on it ,,,,,, , it still goes on