The UK has some excellent advantages when it comes to internal shipping and logistics. This makes getting your products from the shelf to the customer's doorstep one of the easiest parts of operating an ecommerce business in the UK, and gives direct-to-consumer brands the ability to compete with Amazon on delivery times and reliability.
A first advantage is the country's relatively small geography (around 96,000 square miles, versus 211,000 for France, 3 million for Australia and 3.8 million for the US). This results in low delivery costs and times throughout the country, simply because the couriers have shorter distances to travel. Even packages to the most far-flung destinations don't have that far to go.
That geographic advantage dovetails with the UK's mid-sized population of 67 million, making it worthwhile for several couriers to have well-established operations there, offering full door-to-door operations using their own network and personnel, rather than relying on another courier for 'last-mile' delivery as is common elsewhere. Couriers operating a door-to-door service in the UK include DHL, DPD, UPS, DX Delivery, Evri, Fedex and Parcelforce.
The UK also has the ‘Royal Mail’, an originally state-founded postal service dating back 500 years. The Royal Mail is no longer owned by the UK government, but similar to the US Postal Service, it is required by law to maintain a universal service, which means items up to a specific size can be sent to any part of the UK regardless of distance for a flat rate.
All of these couriers are keen to operate in a stable country where online shopping is well established and continues to grow, and where the transport network is in fairly good condition. The presence of so many courier companies offering parcel deliveries means there's some very healthy competition, and of course healthy competition means low prices for you.
Due to its network, size and universal service obligation, the Royal Mail is normally the best option for shipping small packages with weights below 2kg (4.5lb). Above that weight, the other couriers get very competitive, with pricing also dependent on annual volumes.
For heavy packages over 10kg (22lb) or so, the big name couriers listed above normally beat Royal Mail on price for 24-hour deliveries. There are also some niche couriers specialising in pallet deliveries and these seem to cooperate to form a UK-wide network.
Royal Mail also offers a ‘large letter’ option alongside its parcel service, which can be especially good value if you can get your packages below an inch thick. The exact dimensions for large letters are 353mm x 250mm with a depth of no more than 25mm, and a maximum weight of 750g.
It’s worth being aware of the large letter dimensions when discussing packaging options with a third party logistics company (3PL). If there's a way of packaging your product that fits it within that size, you could be looking at a saving of £0.50-£2.00 per shipment compared to the small parcel rate, depending on the exact weight (large letters can be priced in weight tiers) and the details of your 3PL's contract with Royal Mail. At high order volumes, savings could be substantial, and you'd do well to review this from the beginning.
Working with a 3PL can be very beneficial here, as they're likely to have secured preferential shipping rates with Royal Mail and the couriers. Fulfilment centres' high volumes, pre-sorting of mail and long-term custom make it worthwhile for the couriers to negotiate in a way they wouldn't with single brands, especially those without much of a shipping history.
Royal Mail are especially keen to promote their 'tracked' services, which unlike the cheapest personal and business services, come with a tracking number which should be linked to multiple updates along the delivery route, from collection to transfer to last-mile and delivery confirmation. This is an obvious benefit for you and your customers, though it's worth noting that even Royal Mail's standard 'untracked' business services offer a 'delivery confirmation' number which will at least confirm that a package reached its destination successfully.
The prices offered by Royal Mail to 3PLs for tracked services are likely to be based on volumes and average weights, rather than weight tiers like the standard services. This means that while the lightest large letter items may still be much cheaper when using a standard 24/48 service, heavier large letters and parcels may only be pennies more expensive when sent as a tracked service than as a standard service.
The exact prices will depend on your 3PL and their overall package profile, and it's common for fulfilment businesses to build in a surcharge to the shipping rates they charge you in order to finance their operations or cover the risk they shoulder of a client not paying their shipping bill.
I will mention here that Eirios doesn't do this: uniquely among 3PLs, we pass on our preferential shipping rates in full, and cover our risks by taking a refundable monthly shipping deposit instead. This means clients are likely to find it cheaper to work with us rather than run their operations in-house.
The choice of which UK courier to use for your orders comes down to the only two factors that matter: price and reliability. The price as discussed above is best optimised by looking closely at the large letter and parcel weight and dimension thresholds, negotiating with the couriers directly for volume discounts, or working with a 3PL.
For reliability, actual experience is of course the
