cheapest couriers?

lightspeed

Hi

Im looking at setting up a business in near future which will at least initially sell exclusively online.

The majority of my products may have a relatively small margin to have a chance being on an equal footing with the competition its important i can figure out cheapest shipping method.

Im puzzled about how some companies can charge so little for shipping. My products will mostly be 1 - 2KG excluding weight of packaging. I noticed companies advertise prices within ireland between €3.99 and €5.99 but i cant see any couriers advertising such rates.

Even more bizarre is i noticed UK based companies who operate in France and Germany as well as other EU countries with prices the same as the above even though they are shipping from UK. They mention that delivery is done through DHL or DPD. I have looked at DHL price rates and they are over £40 for delivery from UK to France for example. DHL do offer discounts but only a maximum of £10 per item when you ship over 100 items.

Also most companies seem to offer free shipping when you spend over €50 or €60. Is this just to get revenue in quicker as id imagine you would be making a lower profit margin given that you would incur the shipping cost which is likely more if higher quantity of goods have been ordered by the customer to spend over €50 or €60?

Im interested in what ive read about amazon FBA options even though it still works out more than prices of some competitors shipping directly from their warehouse in UK.

I would of course need to ship the goods in bulk to amazon warehouse in each country in which I hope to trade. Can anyone give me a rough guide as to how much a 1 tonne pallet would cost to ship to UK or other EU countries such as France, Germany?

jimmii

These companies are likely subsidising the cost or else are shipping in big quantities so have preferential deals with the couriers. The cheapest courier is normally Fastway but its the cheapest for a reason don't expect the best service if you do a search here there's quite a lot of threads about them.

A one off 1T pallet from Ireland to UK is likely to cost you around €200+VAT if you are flexible on collection and delivery dates. If your dates are fixed it'll probably be nearer €300.

lucky john

jimmii wrote: »

These companies are likely subsidising the cost or else are shipping in big quantities so have preferential deals with the couriers. The cheapest courier is normally Fastway but its the cheapest for a reason don't expect the best service if you do a search here there's quite a lot of threads about them

The problem with Fastway is generally related to it as a business for the courier.
As a customer I think its different. I have been using them for years for deliveries in Ireland, North and South and cant say much bad about them. They are competitively priced and rarely miss next day delivery. Personally I think they would be worth the OP chatting to at least.

lightspeed

jimmii wrote: »

These companies are likely subsidising the cost or else are shipping in big quantities so have preferential deals with the couriers. The cheapest courier is normally Fastway but its the cheapest for a reason don't expect the best service if you do a search here there's quite a lot of threads about them.

A one off 1T pallet from Ireland to UK is likely to cost you around €200+VAT if you are flexible on collection and delivery dates. If your dates are fixed it'll probably be nearer €300.

Thanks i guess ill have to contact a few different couriers try get an idea of what quantity of volume i need to be shipping to gain lower shipping fees.

Can you give me a rough idea of how much fastway would charge for example for 1 KG item within Ireland?

I would imagine there most be some solution tailored to start up business as if the low shipping prices are volume related, obviously no company starts out with high volume orders.

Im wondering what costs i would incur shipping to amazon fulfillment centre in France and Germany.

Any idea cost of 1 tonne pallet to France or germany?

jimmii

lucky john wrote: »

The problem with Fastway is generally related to it as a business for the courier.
As a customer I think its different. I have been using them for years for deliveries in Ireland, North and South and cant say much bad about them. They are competitively priced and rarely miss next day delivery. Personally I think they would be worth the OP chatting to at least.

I'm the same I've used them loads and any time I have had issues they resolved them quick enough.

jimmii

lightspeed wrote: »

Thanks i guess ill have to contact a few different couriers try get an idea of what quantity of volume i need to be shipping to gain lower shipping fees.

Can you give me a rough idea of how much fastway would charge for example for 1 KG item within Ireland?

I would imagine there most be some solution tailored to start up business as if the low shipping prices are volume related, obviously no company starts out with high volume orders.

Im wondering what costs i would incur shipping to amazon fulfillment centre in France and Germany.

Any idea cost of 1 tonne pallet to France or germany?

You can Google pallet prices to anywhere and get prices for any weight up to a couple of tonnes. . For a one off 1kg delivery you will probably get it for €5 or €6 I would have thought.

lightspeed

jimmii wrote: »

You can Google pallet prices to anywhere and get prices for any weight up to a couple of tonnes. . For a one off 1kg delivery you will probably get it for €5 or €6 I would have thought.

i have done that but all websites just seem to want you to fill out a form them to get back to you with a quote.

Im just looking for ball park figures at the moment.

Based on what ive seen, I assume prices of €5.00 and €6.00 would be based on volume discounts which is what i want to find out more about. Most quotes I see from online calculators are around €8.00 and above.

martyoo

Recently moved from DPD to Fastway. Much better rates and the service is just as good. It would be nice if they had the one hour delivery notice like DPD but it's not a big issue.

lightspeed

martyoo wrote: »

Recently moved from DPD to Fastway. Much better rates and the service is just as good. It would be nice if they had the one hour delivery notice like DPD but it's not a big issue.

Can you give any indication of price and if you have been able to avail of any discounts?

ill be shipping items between 1-2KG mostly . I had a look at their website but again like every other courier, they dont give any prices under price and just want me to fill out a quotation form.

ZeroThreat

Did you check Nightline's rates?

lightspeed

ZeroThreat wrote: »

Did you check Nightline's rates?

I just looked at them now and i put in a rough guess of size and dimensions for a 1 KG package within Ireland. Cheapest price was €6.50 but that is exclusive of Vat. The price inclusive of Vat is €8.00.

As i understand I would be passing on the Vat charge to the customer, it is still not as competitive as what ive seen others paying. So the question for me remains how are some companies paying €3.00 and €4.00 for same size packages and above?

quinney123

jimmii wrote:

A one off 1T pallet from Ireland to UK is likely to cost you around €200+VAT if you are flexible on collection and delivery dates. If your dates are fixed it'll probably be nearer €300.

jimmii wrote:

These companies are likely subsidising the cost or else are shipping in big quantities so have preferential deals with the couriers. The cheapest courier is normally Fastway but its the cheapest for a reason don't expect the best service if you do a search here there's quite a lot of threads about them.

I work in logistics and have 10 years experience it all depends on the size of the pallet but realistically a 48 hour service based on a standard UK pallet would cost approx EUR 100.00 based on Dublin collection and delivery to the likes of Manchester and birmingham! PM me if you need any help as we ship goods to all over Europe/globally on a daily basis

Walter2016

If you are doing volume you will have no issues getting rates of €3.50 + vat within Ireland and €5 + vat to UK.

But a start-up won't have volume and online selling is extremely difficult these days as most of the larger retailers are now in the space and getting noticed is very difficult.

jimmii

quinney123 wrote: »

I work in logistics and have 10 years experience it all depends on the size of the pallet but realistically a 48 hour service based on a standard UK pallet would cost approx EUR 100.00 based on Dublin collection and delivery to the likes of Manchester and birmingham! PM me if you need any help as we ship goods to all over Europe/globally on a daily basis

Jaysus thats a decent price!

OP best PM this guy!

ZeroThreat

lightspeed wrote: »

I just looked at them now and i put in a rough guess of size and dimensions for a 1 KG package within Ireland. Cheapest price was €6.50 but that is exclusive of Vat. The price inclusive of Vat is €8.00.

As i understand I would be passing on the Vat charge to the customer, it is still not as competitive as what ive seen others paying. So the question for me remains how are some companies paying €3.00 and €4.00 for same size packages and above?

Company I know of were with a previous courier which discontinued its domestic parcel service, they were being charged €5 per parcel (4.50 for Dub & surrounding counties) - excluding VAT.


They were however charging customers about €15 p&p charge per delivery, excluding vat


I reckon you would need to be doing a large amount of business to get a rate of 3.50 though. The business I refer to above was doing somewhere around 300 parcels p/week average.

Btw, Nightline also seem to add on a 2.5% fuel surcharge.

quinney123

I am more then happy to have a chat on the phone about different prices as it really depends on where in these countries you are sending to as prices vary let me know. PM me

eleventy6

You should try Parcel Direct all there pricing is online and they do pallet deliveries as well.

I know a friend who has an online business and they set her up with special rates once she registered for a free account

Dublinhurler

To get the best rates you need to ring the companies directly instead of looking online. You won't get a good discount in the beginning because your not going to have that much volume going out. I'd imagine your cheapest options starting off would be to try nightline and do it through parcel motel or fastway Parcelshop you could try an post courier service not sure how competitive they are. I personally use nightline 90 percent of the time I find them great.

In relation to shipping a pallet on a once off basis your best bet if your flexible with dates I'd imagine would be anyvan I've found the couriers on that very good.

Graham

eleventy6 wrote: »

You should try Parcel Direct all there pricing is online and they do pallet deliveries as well.

I know a friend who has an online business and they set her up with special rates once she registered for a free account

Last time Parcel Direct were recommended they turned out to be fairly expensive. They do appear to be fairly popular with new members with low post counts though

_Brian

lightspeed wrote: »

I just looked at them now and i put in a rough guess of size and dimensions for a 1 KG package within Ireland. Cheapest price was €6.50 but that is exclusive of Vat. The price inclusive of Vat is €8.00.

As i understand I would be passing on the Vat charge to the customer, it is still not as competitive as what ive seen others paying. So the question for me remains how are some companies paying €3.00 and €4.00 for same size packages and above?

They're just bumping some of the shipping charge onto the product.

quinney123

They are not bumping it onto the product. It's all down to volume. I have worked in logistics all my life and those rates are in the market

ZeroThreat

quinney123 wrote: »

They are not bumping it onto the product. It's all down to volume. I have worked in logistics all my life and those rates are in the market

Business I worked for was getting per parcel rates of €4.50 for Dublin & surrounding counties (€5.00 for other counties) & invoicing the customers carriage costs of nearly €16 for each delivery. Can't go wrong with that model

Silverbling

I am in the process of cancelling my Amazon FBA account, 7 weeks and no sign of my products back or any reply from seller support, its shocking, on a retail price of €25 the fees were €9.87 plus storage and thats per item plus the €38 a month fee, to sell my goods they wanted me to pay for thier version of adwords on top of the charges, I jumped through a million expensive hoops to become a branded prime seller, no sales, huge fees and no replies to emails

I sell jewellery so my products are light but for courier deliveries I use fastway, €6 a parcel, for very heavy incoming deliveries I use parcel wizard and an address in the North, they are great at incoming but crazy money for outgoing unless you have a business account

Banner73

We have used www.snapparcel.com and have found them to be the cheapest at €6.90 +VAT. Delivery may take a day or two longer but that normally doesn't bother the purchaser.

davindub

lightspeed wrote: »

I just looked at them now and i put in a rough guess of size and dimensions for a 1 KG package within Ireland. Cheapest price was €6.50 but that is exclusive of Vat. The price inclusive of Vat is €8.00.

As i understand I would be passing on the Vat charge to the customer, it is still not as competitive as what ive seen others paying. So the question for me remains how are some companies paying €3.00 and €4.00 for same size packages and above?

Your looking at companies with a real competitive advantage over you, you will not be able to replicate the prices with small volumes.

For example, Company A ships 1 truck load of goods per day, goes to delivery companies depot. While on the truck cost per unit is lower than sending a van to collect 3 items. Delivery company can charge less. Delivering the items, the volume of goods being delivered gives the delivery company established routes, they charge less to keep the company happy and keep the routes. Any additional units provide the profit on the route.

Loads of different scenarios for pricing rational, but you get the idea.