Cost of posting RC cars

[Nickarla]

Realising that I never use my FTX Carnage now that I have my ST Pro I’m thinking of selling it. Just been looking a my postage costs and the cheapest I’ve found from Royal Mail/Parcel Force is £19. That seems very expensive so was wondering how others do it. Who do you use and how much does it cost you?

[RCbutcher]

I use parcel force tbh just try to get it inside the smallest package possible it's more about dimensions of the box than weight. 

 

I've used parcel monkey for heavier rcs tho like large scales. I was told they are/were one of the cheaoest but it's been afew years since I used them. 

[willb]

I use Parcel Monkey for all of my larger postage items. It costs roughly £10 to send a large RC (such as a Hyper ST Pro) with Parcel Force on a 48 hour service. All you do is book the service through Parcel Monkey, print the label off, attach it and drop the box at your local post office.

[Nickarla]

So Parcel monkey is a broker for parcels?

[stretch]

Parcel2go and parcelmonkey are like the compare car insurance sites. Just make sure you select the right insurance amount as the cheapest prices only have cover for like £50.

 

There are options for drop off and home collection.

Edited June 6, 2020 by stretch

[Oh How Original]

Yes, I use Parcel2Go, who tend to be a tiny bit cheaper.

Never use Royal Mail for sending anything big or heavy, Kevs wrong, it does go on weight too, anything below 2kg is fine for Royal Mail, anything above that they start getting stupid on price.

Some couriers won't even take things over 10kg because that's what one driver should lift, but some will send drivers out with 30kg.

Places like Royal Mail and Parcelforce (who are essentially one company btw) also rip you off if you get things wrong, they charge something like £25 if you get the weight wrong, I was 1.4kg off on a parcel with Hermes and they charged me £2.55 lol.

Much better IMO, not ripping you off just for the sake of it.

[Nitroholic]

Parcel Monkey and Parcel to go are not comparison sites.....

 

The industry term is 're-seller'

 

They use a promise of high volume sales to get discounted rates with carriers, part of which they pass on...the other part is their profit. In return, they go find the customers, pay for advertising, and assuming they get the volumes they promised...all is well for everyone. Of course...if they fail to get the volume, when their contract is up for renewal, the carrier will ramp up their price as the carrier is providing a cheaper service than if they sold it directly to a third party that is adding nothing. Volume sales make for cheaper handling costs for carriers...so it should work as long as all parties did what they said they would. This is also why you will see price fluctuations on the re-sellers and carriers coming and going.

 

BUT....with any reseller....check the small print, and make sure you are actually getting the service you want. Advertised prices usually only include the minimum insurance or none at all. If you send a car worth £200, put only have £20 insurance....when something goes wrong and the item is lost or damaged....you will only ever get back what you insured for.  Similarly, check what proof of delivery you get. Additionally....don't expect the reseller to do much to chase up any issues. Last time I used a reseller, the collection never happened...and all they did was rebook it for the next day.....with the promise that if it didn't get picked up again...I would get a refund.  That doesn;t help when the person you sold it to wanted it in a hurry.

 

Price wise....Royal Mail Parcels are geared for small items. Weight is a major factor, as well as size. Prices go up very fast when you get to shoe box sized items and above. Parcelforce handle Royal Mail larger items. The base price covers up to 10Kg, and you only pay more above that. Maximum sizes are in place, but volumetric charges don't apply for UK deliveries. They definitely apply for International services where air-freight is needed.

 

As far as 'ripping you off' for under declaring weight....the surcharge is a deliberate penalty. It's there in black and white. Weigh your item....and be honest. If more people were honest about contents, weights and such...a penalty wouldn't be needed to deter.  Not to mention, as a carrier, trying to maintain goods vehicles within legal weight tolerances when people routinely expect to under declare the weight of a box and get away with it. If you get a minute...google what happens to drivers caught with overweight loads..and then try and work out a load plan where you have to do that where you can't trust the data. It's about as ethical as stuffing lipo batteries in a box and lying when asked what's in it.

 

People feel they have a right to do this....but never give a thought for the consequences when some poor courier gets a tug and gets hauled off to a weighbridge by VOSA and loses his licence.

[stretch]

43 minutes ago, Nitroholic said:

Parcel Monkey and Parcel to go are not comparison sites.....

 

The industry term is 're-seller'

 

 

 

Yeah I used to work for a company that did the same I was trying to do the tldr version ie the sites will show you prices from different couriers.

[babylon]

Makes me laugh when I see someone wanting 30 quid postage for a buggy, When I sent a 5ive T with eBay Paclink/UPS for 20 quid with £400 coverage.

[Nickarla]

Cheapest I can find is £15 for 5kg valued at £170. Still seems a lot to me when the non insured price is £6. Makes me wonder why it more than doubles for something that shouldn’t really be needed at all.

[Nitroholic]

Normally...when someone states £30 for postage, they are trying to add £15 minimum to the price, and haven't bothered to find out what the thing will cost to post before putting up the advert.

 

Before I give a postage quote, I box up the thing....weigh it....and get a price. If I was going to have to go out and pay money for boxes and packaging materials, rather than re-using stuff, I might add a small charge to cover that... but usually I just charge

what it costs....and never more than it is costing me to send the thing.

 

If you want more money for the item...put the price up. That's my view

[Nickarla]

Completely agree.

[babylon]

So, I sold all my slotcar stuff the other day, Quiet a lot of stuff, Used Parcel Monkey in the end and a pickup with Parcel Force, I had 3 boxes, One box was 19kg, One box was 15kg, And the smallest was 6kg, So that's 40kg in total, Cost me 31 quid with insurance.

So the  next time someone says my Truggy is heavy and it's 30 quid delivery, Tell them to do one.

[Nigtt]

Hermes is the cheapest usually 

[UKRobster]

Slightly different but I've just sent a load of PC parts by Hermes.
I found their prices very reasonable.
Have to sign up for an account though.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[Garry]

Clever packing like taking the wheels off helps getting it in a smaller box. Weight is the killer paart no matter what you do.

[namastebuzz]

Basically it's £20 to send a big, expensive car fully insured.

RM48 or Interparcel/Parcel Monkey. Try and avoid Hermes/Yodel type carriers if you want your item to arrive undamaged or at all.

If using a reseller then DPD/UPS /FedEx options are generally better.

You can send something like a 1/10 buggy roller for about a fiver minimum but there's usually only about £15-20 cover so not a good idea if it's worth hundreds.

When you ship through a reseller you get THEIR T&Cs not the courier firm's. Good luck trying to claim from Parcel2Go. They're a bunch of crooks. The reseller's terms are stricter than the courier's so they'll do anything to avoid paying out.

If I was shipping a £400 Arrma I'd probably just use RM48 for £20 odd.

Sent from my MIX2 using Tapatalk

[bigoggy]

On 26/06/2020 at 10:42, Nigtt said:

Hermes is the cheapest usually 

They are cheap for a reason.

 

3 parcels out of 11 they should have delivered to me in the last 12 months have gone missing, I now ask what courier a seller is using, if it's Hermes, I don't buy from them.

[Lone-wolf]

21 minutes ago, bigoggy said:

They are cheap for a reason.

 

3 parcels out of 11 they should have delivered to me in the last 12 months have gone missing, I now ask what courier a seller is using, if it's Hermes, I don't buy from them.

Im kind of with you on the Hermes problems, they have a very bad rep at the moment, as we speak looks like a parcel coming to me has gone awol!, back to posting, this is the issue that puts me of selling large items like rc cars, i have a buggy to sell and just dont want the hassle of posting

[CarlC]

24 minutes ago, bigoggy said:

They are cheap for a reason.

 

3 parcels out of 11 they should have delivered to me in the last 12 months have gone missing, I now ask what courier a seller is using, if it's Hermes, I don't buy from them.

 

Last time my other half ordered some flash trainers for her son they were coming Hermes. Didn't arrive, we chased them and they finally admitted that the temporary driver they had been using had stolen a truck full of parcels and they had no idea where it was. Won't ever buy from someone using Hermes.

[bigoggy]

I currently have a rare, large, nitro monster truck on ebay.

 

With the size, weight, and insurance, Royal Mail want almost £30, so it's collection only, I could have sold it 4 times if I were willing to post it.

 

2 people have actually sent me links saying to use Hermes, or another company, and it will only cost me £12, I just refuse, I would rather lose the sale, than have to deal with issues arising from it getting damaged, or going missing.

[babylon]

Why dose everybody else seem to have such trouble with Hermes and the like, I've had a bit of a purge the last 3 or 4 weeks and sold 9 things at £1100, Everything has arrived in double quick fashion, And in all my years I don't think I have ever lost one thing.

 

20 minutes ago, bigoggy said:

With the size, weight, and insurance, Royal Mail want almost £30, so it's collection only, I could have sold it 4 times if I were willing to post it

 

I sent my full Alloy X2 for 20 quid, That was just knocking on the door of 20KG, And like I said, I sent all my slotcar stuff for £31, In 3 separate boxes and 40KG, No trouble at all, Booked online at about 10pm on a Monday, Picked up Wednesday, Job done.

Hermes and the like are great if you ask me, I can sell something 9 o'clock at night, Print off a label and drop it off at my local CostCutter or offie 5 minutes later.

[.AJ.]

I started using Hermes over the lock down, I’ve sent 19 parcels in the last couple months and apart from one disappearing for a couple days and then reappearing they have all been delivered on time and in one piece 👍 

 

[GMballistic]

Have to be honest almost every delivery firm is going to have issues occasionally and I do think that sometimes people are just unlucky or unfortunate, ...if there's a dodgy delivery driver in their area then maybe things are going to go missing for example. 

 

I've used many over the years but predominantly Royal Mail and Parcel Force. They're my go to for any post/parcels and pound for pound they're the most reliable despite maybe costing a little bit more than the others (you get what you pay for though). 

 

As for Hermes, in the last month or so I've had a parcel destined for me go missing, fail to be delivered twice when they said it would and then eventually turn up looking like it'd been kicked around by a footballer. I'd never choose to use that company nor recommend it to anyone else.
 

 

[Ollykamakazi]

Just viewed a vid of Hermes driver throwing each package to the back of his truck as he scanned each one.

No wonder they all arrive destroyed.

 

 

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