The Wholesale Forums

[sabrads]

What I find annoying is when you list the postage cost on the auction, someone buys that item and then they complain that the postage was too high - they had the option of not buying the item or buying from someone else but no they just want to put their two-penny-worth in.

If I had hidden the costs or added a surcharge then I could understand their annoyance but they have the details in front of them.

Plus I dont think many of them think about the costs, if paid by paypal then you loose a percentage of the postage in fees, packaging costs etc all add up ! As Greedyboy said there are the other costs related to the business, not just what the item costs and the stamp.

[greedyboy]

Next time someone moans about the postage tell them would they rather you charge them the cost of the stamp and just put the stamp on the item and stick it in a post box!

Depending on the volume you send, if you spend £5K or more a year you can qualify for PPI which is your own stamp and the recipient has no idea of the postage cost. Stops the moaners big time!!!!

[mrsweet]

Using Paypal also hides this cost if you wish

GBoy

Regards packet Post and PPi how do you produce a proof of post? I was told we have to create a speedsheet of each item and Postman will sign on collection, we spent 30k on post so thinking about this service.... but the proof of post thing is a pain and it's shocking RM dont have a simple system for this.

With paypal we get a nice printout that postoffice/man can sign.

Paypal can get slow, and you pay full price and no 2nd class option

Andy

[greedyboy]

If you are spending 30K contact RM today regarding PPI. You get great discounts and could possibly knock another 20% off your 30K!

There are two ways OBA (online business account) or manual. We prefer manual and there are a few tricks you can do to ;

Our invoices/receipts automatically print the label and PPI. We pick, pack and then use the label from the invoice. You then weigh the mail sacks, document them in the post book and load up the trollys (which RM supply). You are then charged the average weight for each parcel. The book is stamped by the postie (after he has spent half an hour chatting drank all your tea and ate all your biscuits). The book is your proof of postage.

I have seen people use their own forms which documents each package and is signed off by the postie. Personally we do not bother nor bother to claim for lost items. Anything valuable is send SD or courier.

For Specials, we have a separate book where each package is documented.

We hardly use signed for, but we just use the slips (for our records) and stick the post in the sacks with the other first class.

Incidentally if anyone is looking for someone to warehouse and send their stock for them, we are currently doing this for a few companies on a pay as you go basis. It is an area I would like to expand slowly and would be interested in taking on a handful more clients.

[sabrads]

Not quite at the 5K limit yet ( more like the 1K level but growing ).

I will look into PPI when we get to that point !

Thanks for the advice.

[david.pagotto]

Hey Guys,
Definatly a big difference, Went from 100% to 99% (and i have over 2000 FB).
But everyone has gone down with me...so not much of a problem.

[mrsweet]

Originally Posted by greedyboy

If you are spending 30K contact RM today regarding PPI. You get great discounts and could possibly knock another 20% off your 30K!

There are two ways OBA (online business account) or manual. We prefer manual and there are a few tricks you can do to ;

Our invoices/receipts automatically print the label and PPI. We pick, pack and then use the label from the invoice. You then weigh the mail sacks, document them in the post book and load up the trollys (which RM supply). You are then charged the average weight for each parcel. The book is stamped by the postie (after he has spent half an hour chatting drank all your tea and ate all your biscuits). The book is your proof of postage.

I have seen people use their own forms which documents each package and is signed off by the postie. Personally we do not bother nor bother to claim for lost items. Anything valuable is send SD or courier.

For Specials, we have a separate book where each package is documented.

We hardly use signed for, but we just use the slips (for our records) and stick the post in the sacks with the other first class.

Incidentally if anyone is looking for someone to warehouse and send their stock for them, we are currently doing this for a few companies on a pay as you go basis. It is an area I would like to expand slowly and would be interested in taking on a handful more clients.

Thanks, very good info.

So looking at Parcel Post and PPI you say it saves money, sound good to me.

I guess the proof of postage via the book will work ok.

Do you place heavy items in a seperate batch so as not to lift avr weight on light items? thats one area i've spotted that could have issues.

Thanks again

Andy

P.S. Your storage solution sounds interesting

[greedyboy]

If you have a lot of parcels it pays to mix them up to get the average weight down.

Thanks for the comments on our fulfilment services. Like I said we are only doing it for a few companies at the moment to test the water and to see if it works out.

It makes sense to us as we have the space and staff. Not really looking to go OTT with this service but a few more customers would be handy so we can manage and grow that side of the business slowly. Ideally we want to take on another person on just to handle fulfilment customers, from customer care to packing the orders. I'm happy to offer a free trial to serious clients.

[Jez]

I use PPI using the Online Business Account and have spoke to customer services about proof of postage which I don't currently use any way of recording, they have said as a Business customer with a PPI account I don't require a proof of postage and will take my word if I make a claim for a lost item.

As Greedboy says if you have a lot of parcels it pays to try to get the average weight down by mixing them up. What I do is I calculat the average for all parcels weighing less than 1KG and calculate the average weight for all parcels weighing over 1KG. I then spend 10mins seeing if it is cheaper to average all the parcels together in one lot or to put them through as a batch under 1KG and a batch over 1KG.

Another good point about PPI is in the last round of price increases the PPI rates actually went down a few pence.

[span]

I'm confused with the dsr % what do you guy's think is a reasonable % dsr to have,i'm registered on ebay es i got a news letter from them today explaining the new system for feed back and dsr's a nice little diagram showing how to check a sellers dsr then it goes on to say

the best seller's have 4,4 score or more

I would have thought a score of 4,4 would have been looked on as not so good what do you think