postage and packaging

[brianJ]

Hi Guys .
Just got my hands on my own new store and i'm intending on eventually trading over the internet aswell. Can you recommend who I will send the the products through from myself to the customer ?

[retailworld]

Depend on what you're selling?

[m8internet]

If you are using Royal Mail, then use at least RECORDED delivery
For goods valued at over £30 use SPECIAL delivery
For small parcels, use Parcel Force

If you have large and regular volumes of parcels, then some courier companies will collect directly from you
In most cases they will also supply the labels, and then all you do is phone them up when parcels need to be uplifted

I think the main thing to consider is passing on these costs to customers
You also need to include the packaging!
If all the parcels will be the same size, then that is easy enough, however you may need a variety of sizes

If you've never done this before, it might also be worth working out how long it takes to package up 10 parcels, and this will then give you the cost rate per parcel :
Print out ten sample orders, make them a cross-section of orders that you expect or from history
Collect the items that make up the ten orders
Start timer
Construct the ten packages or boxes for delivery
Insert the contents, making sure they are adequately protected
Seal up the ten parcels
Stop the timer
This will then give you the costs for materials, and the time taken to make up 10 parcels
Dividing this by 10 will give you the unit cost and time, and you can then adjust that based on the difference in cost for materials between the smallest and largest packagings

[emmab]

At work I USE DHL. They are good if you are going to be delivering alot of parcels .