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I've been using MyHermes for the past year and have no complaints, they are cheaper than RM for everything I send, I can drop the parcels off at the Spar shop opposite work 7 days a week between 6 am & 11pm, they collect 6 days a week from the spar and have now started delivering 7 days a week, the longest I've had to queue is 2mins & the staff are always very pleasant in the Spar shop, now compare that to posting by RM, it's a 6 mile round trip, parking is a nightmare, they only open 8.30 till 5 6 days a week, are more expensive and if you hit the place at the wrong time you can have at least a 30 min wait and the staff are always grumpy. I do have a post box about 500 yards away from home but I require a certificate of postage for items upto £20 or a signed for service over that due to scammed, so just popping it into a post box is not an option.

MyHermes is not suitable for everyone like Christel said she has a cheaper courier they use but for me Hermes are my best option as I work shifts during the week so can't be around to wait for couriers to collect.

Postage charges are always a contentious issue, you only have to look at eBay for that with people selling stuff for 1p and postage of £19.99 . Years ago when I used to sell a lot on ebay if people brought multiple items I would always refund any overpayment they made on postage and you know what out of the hundreds of times I did that not one person thanked me for it!!!

In the past couple of years I've used Amazon to sell on as they were cheaper and a better marketplace for the stuff I was selling but on a lot of categories they set the postage price, so books for instance is set at £2.80, so very few books I sold ( big hardback vehicle repair manuals ) actually cost me less than £3.50 ( some were £5.50 +) to post never mind the cost of packaging or getting to the post office and unless you pay amazon a monthly fee close on £30 you can't set the postage price of anything you sell.

Primer wrote:
Postage charges are always a contentious issue, you only have to look at eBay for that with people selling stuff for 1p and postage of £19.99

That was a way around ebay fees, as you didn't get charged fees on postage IIRC..

If you're a BASC trade member they have a group deal with Parcel Force, you only pay the subscription in a month you use the service and the rates are about half the Joe Public rates. Makes sending rifles very affordable.

One of the reasons I still use Royal Mail for non Firearm parcels is that their rate is for anywhere in the UK, unlike many other couriers who charge a premium for Scottish Highlands for example.

techguy wrote:

Primer wrote:
Postage charges are always a contentious issue, you only have to look at eBay for that with people selling stuff for 1p and postage of £19.99

That was a way around ebay fees, as you didn't get charged fees on postage IIRC..

They certainly charge fees on postage now! Pay to sell, pay to post, pay to get paid!
Interparcel used to be very good and offer some great rates, I've not used them lately though

techguy wrote:

Primer wrote:
Postage charges are always a contentious issue, you only have to look at eBay for that with people selling stuff for 1p and postage of £19.99

That was a way around ebay fees, as you didn't get charged fees on postage IIRC..

Yes the old circumnavigation of eBay fee's scam.

They are now cracking down on people that cancel listings and will not allow cancellations if you have a bid, so say you advertise a car for sale and someone comes and views it (as you would hope) and you do a cash deal you won't be able to cancel the listing if some knobber has put in a bid of £1 (as they always seem to do) on your £10k car, as it breaks ebays doing deals outside of eBay as it means they will lose out on final value and paypal fees.

With eBay. Wasnt it also to do with refunds? As you don't refund postage. So you buy it for 1p and pay 19.99 postage. If it disapears or isn't as described they only have to give you the 1p back. Or have they changed that too?