Hi chooms. We’ve made some changes to UK delivery charges so I just wanted to explain what they are and why we’ve made them. It’s not the most riveting topic so I’ll try and keep it short.
Why the Changes?
We’ve seen increasing courier charges over the last year or more. While we’ve changed our main domestic courier from DHL to Fedex to get a cheaper (and more reliable) service, everyone’s prices are increasing. All orders weighing more than 2kg were going by courier and we were taking a hit on every one (especially Free Delivery orders) until we can’t ignore it any longer.
Actually We Already Made Some Changes
Although our website says we’re sending most orders Royal Mail 2nd Class, for some time now we’ve actually been using Royal Mail Tracked 48 instead. This is the same service in terms of speed – they hope to deliver in two days – but it’s a fully tracked service so you can see where your order is. The cost for this became comparable, so there was no chang in pricing at the time from £3.00+VAT*. We didn’t announce this earlier becuase we thought the price might go up again, so didn’t want to jinx it. However, it seems to be here to stay, so we’re finally announcing it now. This means that all our UK orders are sent tracked, and have been for some time.
So What are the New Changes?
So Courier Delivery charges have gone up for now from £3.95+VAT* to £7.00+VAT*, which is the minimum it costs us to send something by courier. This is a big increase, but then we’ve held off increasing prices for quite some time. We have also introduced more delivery options that provide cheaper delivery without compromising on quality. We hope that fewer people will feel the need to use courier delivery going forwards. For Free Delivery orders, we’ll be using Royal Mail Tracked 48 from now on.
Soon we plan to change the cost of courier shipping to reflect exactly what it costs to deliver to your address. For most customers this will remain at about £7, but for a few it might be substantially more. We would especially urge those of you in the north of Scotland and Northern Ireland to use our expanded Royal Mail services instead.
Heavier Orders Can Now Go Royal Mail
Previously, any order over 2kg in weight had to go by courier, but Royal Mail actually take much heavier orders, they just keep it quiet (we’re not sure why, but it seems like they want to push you towards Parcelforce, a much more expensive option). We’ve therefore updated our pricing matrix to allow heavier orders to go Royal Mail for a slightly higher charge – anything up to 20kg in fact. An ‘average heavy order’ of 4-5kg will be £5.50+VAT*, for example.
But I Choose Courier Delivery Because It’s Fast
Yes, Courier Delivery is also faster than Tracked 48, so to try and offset this we’ve introduced Royal Mail Tracked 24 as an option. For this the delivery goal is the following day for most of the UK, and for a 2kg order the price increase is only 50p+VAT* over Tracked 48. We can’t claim it’ll be quite as reliably-next day as courier delivery, but it should be practically as good most of the time. Like Tracked 48, this will now be an option up to 20kg parcels, although courier delivery may still work out as a better deal for most at the top of that spectrum.
Let Us Know Your Thoughts
It feels like this will provide a similar service without too much of a price increase for most orders and most customers, and standard orders up to 2kg remain unchanged. However, let us know your thoughts on the changes and how they affect you. We’ve always tried to keep delivery options simple, but if there are other options you’d value, please let us know via the Contact page.
Remember also that all the above only relates to United Kingdom deliveries. We will be working on international shipping too and hope to bring some real improvements there, but that’s another post for another day.
*Note that there’s no VAT on orders that contain only books. VAT is an additional 20% of the delivery on other orders.