Cheaper, More Reliable Ways To Send A Parcel

Postal strikes have left a Mount Everest of mail in the sorting offices, yet you still need to send a parcel. It’s going to cost you a packet to use a courier, right?
 
Wrong. Some web-based courier services actually cost less than Royal Mail – AND they’ll pick up from your home.

The cheapest way to send a parcel of not more than 2kg within the UK is by using My Hermes(www.myhermes.co.uk), which charges £3.99 and takes between three and five days to deliver door to door.
 
Second-class post – when the postmen are working – takes the same length of time and costs £4.41.
 
Quicker but way more expensive is Royal Mail’s parcel delivery arm, Parcelforce, which guarantees delivery in two days. Cost? £10.50.

If your package weighs between 2 and 10kg, your best bet for reliable delivery is Parcel Monkey, for example, (www.parcelmonkey.co.uk). Its three-to-four-day service costs £6.90, but parcels have been known to arrive on the other side of the UK within 36 hours.

How do they do it? Parcel Monkey and other discounted mail services, including www.Parcel2Go.com  and www.interparcel.com, buy spare capacity at rock bottom prices from the big courier companies like Fedex and DHL. They then sell off the slots to people like us.

Just register on the site and fill in an online form for your parcel. You’ll need a printer to run off the delivery labels and – for security’s sake – a Paypal account to settle up (open one at www.paypal.co.uk). You’ll be able to track your packet’s progress too.

And, remember - these services are way more reliable and often cheaper than the Royal Mail, so useful long after the current strike and Christmas are over.