UPS Prices via Interparcel or Parcel2Go - WTF IS GOING ON - April 7th

guitars4you

andyoz said:

Another one I've used is  https://parcelbroker.co.uk/index.php
This is mainly because the others mentioned above no longer allow UPS from Nth Ireland to England.

I've had to use P2G for both Northern Ireland and ROI on many occasions as Interpracel did not always offer this service, based on weight and size of a guitar box - yet UPS was the chosen carrier for both agents 

jpfamps

Presumably this could also be due to the timing of when Interparcel's contract is up for renegotiation; if other broker's contracts expire later in the year then their price rise will be delayed.

Lozboy

Great thread thanks for all the info

Arktik83

As someone who works for a courier company and not as a driver a lot of the actual courier companies don't actually like Parcel2Go, Interparcel etc. as the courier company is doing all the leg work and the middle man takes quite a nice profit from it.  

Though it does hinge entirely on how many shipments the middleman moves or if they can make a promise to shift their punters towards UPS or the courier company they are looking to negotiate a deal with.  Especially if you're pushing certain "lanes" such as USA, Western Europe etc.

On the flip-side, courier companies don't much like B2C shipments either as there's no guarantee that person's gonna be in, there might some customs fee's that need to be cleared before delivery etc. and the parcels take up space in their warehouse so they cannot stop dealing with the middle man at all because they bring in a lot of B2C revenue for that firm.  Parcels in a warehouse for a courier is the worst case scenario as it's just money down the drain and you run the risk of not being able to take on more parcels if the warehouse starts filling up.  

Like the person at Interparcel said, one thing the courier company will do is just hike up the middle mans rate if that company cannot promise the numbers of certain lanes or at certain weights as a way to dissuade that middle man from using their service.  It's all a bit I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.  

You also get a lot of chaining where a middle man will take your booking, use the account number of a bigger middle man who will then use UPS/TNT etc.  So maybe P2Go has a contract with a bigger, mainly B2B shipper who has more leverage with UPS so could get a better rate.

Long story short: always best to shop around!

Thanks for the heads up, Mark.

vale

as a receiver of parcels (so from your customers' perspective), i far prefer to receieve from ups than parcel to go. & myherpes are the worst.

whenever i get a dispatch update for something & it says myherpes my heart sinks a little. it means they will deliver at some absurd hour & leave a card saying to call them (which they forget/don't bother to write their number on), or leave it somewhere they shouldn't, or leave it with a neighbour. just trouble.

plus i get the general impression from things i read that they don't look after their staff as well as other companies. i try to be ethical & pro-workers so that's important to me.

between two identical products i would pay a bit extra to have it delivered by anyone but them.
so as a seller worth bearing in mind. my preferences anyway.

guitars4you

Prices back to where they were - Interparcel with UPS on a Guitar box to UK - back to around £11 on a next day - some blip then or error or change of policy - back to normal then

boogieman

vale said:

as a receiver of parcels (so from your customers' perspective), i far prefer to receieve from ups than parcel to go. & myherpes are the worst.

whenever i get a dispatch update for something & it says myherpes my heart sinks a little. it means they will deliver at some absurd hour & leave a card saying to call them (which they forget/don't bother to write their number on), or leave it somewhere they shouldn't, or leave it with a neighbour. just trouble.

plus i get the general impression from things i read that they don't look after their staff as well as other companies. i try to be ethical & pro-workers so that's important to me.

between two identical products i would pay a bit extra to have it delivered by anyone but them.
so as a seller worth bearing in mind. my preferences anyway.

It all really depends on your delivery driver. The lady who does the Hermes deliveries round our way is brilliant.

I use Amazon Prime a lot and again our normal delivery guy is usually very good, but over Xmas they were using temporary staff who were bloody useless: they just lobbed the parcels over our back gate, straight  onto a brick patio 

guitars4you

7th April

Prices gone back up again - yesterday back to old prices - today back up - WTF is going on - technical itch or what - just using Parcel2Go for now

MtB

It's just cost me £50 to send a guitar valued at £630 on the UPS standard delivery. P2G and Interparcel were within pennies of one another in their price. Looks like insurance with Interparcel has gone up from 2% of contents value to between 4 and 5%.

Flink_Poyd

guitars4you said:

gavin_axecaster said:

(UPStoday is owned/run by parcel2Go, which may explain why they get a better rate than Interparcel - I suspect they pre-book 100,000s deliveries a month.)

was not aware that UPS own P2G - clever - bit like Reverb owned by a big USA Guitar Dealer

UPS don't own P2G AFAIK. Parcel 2 Go are just a reseller but a deal must have been made for the branding. 

IvisonGuitars

MtB said:

It's just cost me £50 to send a guitar valued at £630 on the UPS standard delivery. P2G and Interparcel were within pennies of one another in their price. Looks like insurance with Interparcel has gone up from 2% of contents value to between 4 and 5%.

I've just had exactly the same

andrewaward

I noticed the insurance hike also :-(

I use transglobalexpress.co.uk now..........similar basic price to P2G and interparcel, but insurance is £10 for every £500 worth of cover (ie 2%)

boogieman

The govt have put insurance premium tax up by 2% (10-12 %) from June 1st. Probably accounts for some of the difference. 

mort

Thanks for the heads up for TransglobalExpress @andrewaward - haven't posted a guitar for a few months and usually use UPS via Interparcel. Blimey, their prices have shot up! Went from £45 with Interparcel down to £20 with Transglobal, both UPS fully insured.