Postal Services

With the plethora of postal services available in today’s market, not just via Royal Mail but also other postal companies such as City Link, TNT, Business Post, it is no wonder that choosing the right option on how to actually send your post can be extremely confusing.

Aside from the various service options there is also ‘pricing in proportion’ which means you must make sure that you got the right amount of postage on your letter for the size of it, the weight of it, the thickness of it and whether it’s a letter, packet or a parcel. And that’s just for UK post!

I will go through just the main services you can use and what the benefits are of each one.

First Class Post – this is only available through Royal Mail as all the other carriers presort post and then hand it back to Royal Mail for final mile delivery so they lose a day or two in this process. First class post is a 1 to 3 day delivery service. It is not next day guaranteed and it starts at 41 pence which, by comparison of a cup of coffee, is extremely good value for money.

Many people baulk at spending 41 pence on a stamp nowadays, however, based on the value of other items we buy without a second thought, I think this is phenomenal value for money. You can get a letter delivered within a couple of days from John O’Groats to Land’s End at the bargain deal of 41 pence; it really does put that £2.50 coffee to shame!

Second Class Post – This service offers a number of solutions and this is where it can get extremely convoluted. I won’t go into all the various options as there are so many, however, suffice to say you can send post weighing up to 1KG via Royal Mail 2nd class which is a 3 to 5 day service or post weighing up to 2KG using another postal brokerage service which could include City Link, TNT, DHL, Business Post any of these can be used for 2nd class post.

The private postal companies can offer a reduced postal rate based on volume. Quite simply they receive a better postal rate from Royal Mail because they presort the post for Royal Mail and also guarantee certain volumes, so Royal Mail in turn gives them a discount; they then give us a discount and we pass that onto you. It really is as simple as that.

The delivery time for 2nd class post is 3 to 5 days although we have noticed this time scale isn’t quite as reliable when sending it via a third party. Having said that the discounts available offer extremely good value for money. If your item is not extremely time sensitive then I would certainly recommend using a third party for second class post.

There is an additional benefit for the image conscious, the actual postmark (known as an Indicia) we place onto the item is not labeled 1st or 2nd class post, so your recipient doesn’t actually know which service was used. You won’t be judged as to whether you spent more or less on your postage and therefore how you value the importance of that piece of post or parcel being sent to them. This can certainly be an advantage in a business context. You can make considerable savings without actually having your recipient be aware of them.

Signed For Mail – ‘Signed For’ mail can only be sent through Royal Mail. It used to be called ‘registered’ and then ‘recorded’, and now it is called ‘signed for’, quite simply because that is all it is, you just get a signature once it’s delivered. Royal Mail changed the name of this service because they realised it was a little misleading. The item certainly isn’t recorded in transit and cannot be tracked. Basically it goes in the standard 1st or 2nd class postal system and it is not tracked in transit but it does mean that once the item is delivered the recipient has to sign for it. This is a very good service for sending important documents or sending items sold on eBay to ensure the recipient has received them and there is no way they can say they haven’t.

Sometimes people think sending an item Signed For is safer than sending it standard 1st or 2nd. Unless the person lives in a communal area, a block of flats or is likely to say they’ve not received the item when they have, there really is no added value in spending this extra amount of money as it does go just in the standard normal postal system. I’m sure the person you sent a birthday present or card to isn’t going to say they didn’t receive it if they have!

The other advantage of sending something signed for is that it is insured up to 32 pounds.

Special Delivery – The next service up from that from Royal Mail is special delivery. Special delivery is without doubt an excellent service that Royal Mail offers. It is a next day, fully guaranteed delivery service and by that I mean next working day. So if you send something on a Friday for a next working day delivery it would arrive before 1:00 on Monday. A Saturday guaranteed option can be added at an additional cost.

Time sensitive and important documents as well as smaller, lighter valuable goods travel extremely well and Royal Mail have a very high success delivery rate.

For items over 2 kilos and up to 10 kilos, this service can work out to be quite expensive. Having said that you have an in build insurance value of up to £500.00. This can also be extended on any weight or size of your item to either £1,000.00 or £1,500.00 pounds and there is a surcharge on each of those insured amounts.

If the actual value of insurance is not that critical then anything over 2 kilos would fare much better going by a courier service, which generally works out to be better value for money.

Royal Mail Tracked - Another service we offer as an independent post office, but is not actually available from public post offices, is a Royal Mail tracked service. This is ideal for sending goods to residential addresses. This service is ideal for online retailers whose customers tend to be private individuals or eBay sellers who are sending items out to their customers too.

R.M. Tracked is a 2 day delivery service and it allows you to actually pick a safe place to leave the item in a designated area. This way when the postman arrives and no one is there to sign for the item, a ‘sorry you were out’ card is not left, the delivery is simply left in the designated safe area.

This is an excellent value for money service and has proved exceptionally reliable. The only geographical areas it can take a little more than 2 days to deliver to would be the highlands and islands of the UK.

International Mail - Now we come onto international mail. The most popular service for international mail is certainly airmail. Airmail is the quickest best value for money service you can possibly find. This said there are some restrictions; items cannot exceed 2 kilos and/or 90 centimeters in length, width and depth combined. Also the price bracket goes up on weight every 20 grams.

If you haven’t sent a bulky item or package abroad before it can be a bit of a shock as to how much it costs via airmail for sending your parcels. For example, 2KG to Europe would be around £12.00 and items sent to the rest of the world would cost around £24.00. That is just using the usual postal service. Although the delivery time for Airmail should be 3 working days to Europe and 5 working days for the rest of world we have found that delivery times can vary greatly. Royal Mail are very good at getting your letter or parcel out of the country very quickly and it then depend on the local national postal service of the country you’re sending it to as to whether the item is delivered in a timely fashion or not.

Unsurprisingly, post send to Japan is extremely fast, other countries with a less reliable postal service, even though they may be closer to us in EU can in fact take much longer. Airmail does offer another 2 options to either insure or also obtain signature and more security with the delivery.

International Signed For - The first is international signed for and this very much does what it says, it is not tracked in transit but you do get a signature on delivery which is then uploaded to the Royal Mail website for your viewing once it’s been generated. This service costs the airmail price plus an additional cost and you can pay another additional amount of £2.50 to insure the item up to £500.00. This is available in every country of the world.

Airsure - The next service is Airsure, this is not available in every country of the world, as it depends entirely on the postal systems of the destination country. Here is a link to the Royal Mail web-site which lists the countries, one in particular to note is that your can send Airsure to New Zealand but not to Australia; it’s worth checking http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content3?mediaId=22700567&catId=400034

Airsure allows you to insure you’re goods up to the value of £41.00 and it also tracks the item in transit 6 times by use of barcode tracking technology. You can pay a supplement and insure the items up to £500.00 The service does not obtain a signature on delivery; it is scanned the last time at the delivery point overseas. This is very useful for sending items that need to have a more secure method of transit and Airsure is treated as a priority mail in the international sorting transit hubs and distribution.

Surface Mail – Anything you want to send internationally which is over 2 kilos and/or 90 centimeters in length, width and depth combined once it’s packed cannot be sent through the airmail service. If you have a parcel to send that is quite large and bulky and doesn’t have to arrive in a hurry, then you can use surface mail. Surface mail is restricted to 2 kilos as well but the size is not quite so restrictive.

This particular service has been renamed in the industry as snail mail. It can take up to 13 weeks for something to be delivered, hence its nickname. However it is a much cheaper option and you can send up to 2KG’s abroad to Australia for around £14.00.

For anything more bulky than a letter or document being sent outside of Europe you must always make sure that you have a CN22 customs form completed and stuck to the parcel when sending it through the Royal Mail network. These can be obtained at any private or public post office.

Other Items over 2KG or 90cm (L+W+D)

So what should you do if your item is over 2 kilos and also needs to be there in a hurry or is quite bulky? The only other options remaining available to you is to send it by courier. This is automatically an expensive thing to do. As an indication for what to expect, documents on a courier service to the States can cost you anything from £30.00 – £40.00. These prices would ensure an overnight service and give you an indication of the prices international couriers cost. Often times with extremely heavy items you can easily exceed £100.00.

When sending items by courier overseas things can get really quite complicated. There are many good websites available that allow you to obtain quotes online and even booking your collections and deliveries. However, what isn’t evident up front is the huge rigmarole, all the customs forms, commercial invoices and airway bills can take in terms of time. Also, if you don’t know what you’re doing this can be an extremely long and arduous process which then simply needs repeating as soon as custom’s picks up on the package and notices that it’s not been done correctly.

Each country has its own rules and regulations and you would need to check those. Also different couriers can have different regulations of their own set as well as different terms and conditions. In a nutshell, it would be best to check specifically with the courier company you’re sending the item with and ask to speak to their customs division to check exactly what is going to be required for the items you’re sending.

To be perfectly honest, it really does make a lot more sense and saves you a lot of time, hassle and effort by just getting a courier broker to organise all this for you. Not only will you save all the trouble of making sure you have the document correct; 6 original copies of a commercial invoice with the correct VAT and tax official numbers, commodity codes along with any other paperwork required… you are also likely to save money because the broker will be able to obtain discounted rates that they can then pass onto you.

Keep it hassle free, keep it simple, get professionals to do what they know is best.