caberslash
Well-Known Member
Hi all,
Given the 'cost of living crisis' that people are blabbing about (I'm feeling it in primer/power/projectile prices) I thought I would share some tips.
'Free Postage' for the sender!
Like most of you, the primary benefit of this site for me is flogging stuff. So it stings a bit when you land up paying Royal Fail a fair whack for postage. Some try and keep costs down by using couriers like MyHerpes but they are usually rubbish too as staff on minimum wage and not particularly bright, often delivering to the wrong address or putting parcels in bins etc.
So, the first tip?
Royal Fail offer a 'Special Delivery Guaranteed' service which costs a little bit more than 1st Class with all the trimmings (signed for, tracked, insured etc), think around £8 for a small parcel and £12+ for larger ones.
This service is insured to £100 or something like that, with extra costing not much more. So I now send all my sales via this service, full whack.
Why? Well if Royal Fail deliver on time, you 'customer' is very happy. However, if they don't deliver before the promised time, you can claim the costs of postage back so long as you have the reference number and reciept stating the cost of the service. It's easy to track a parcel online, see when it was delivered, and claim the money back.
Tracking- https://www.royalmail.com/track-your-item
Claim form- Claims Centre
There are a couple of caveats like not offering this service to remote addresses (think seperare islands) or accepting before last collection times (although they will happily let you pay for it!).
I'd say it's very much worthwhile as when using this service, I'd say Royal Fail have been late about 50% of the time, usually because the recipient's address is usually visited by the postie after the 1pm guaranteed time, which is a decent return for 'free postage'. They send you a check in the post about a week after you make the claim. May depend on where you send stuff from, and I have been known to use some 'more remote' post office locations...
Do I 'feel bad' in any way for doing this? Not at all, Royal Fail offer this deal and I'm taking them up on their terms. This is the same company that put innocent postmasters in the slammer for years on flase charges so f**k them...
Tip 2, save money on shopping bags without having to lug them to the shop.
Learnt this one from a short stint working as a waiter at a Chinese (Cantonese) Restaurant a while ago at weekends, they paid in cash and food!
So, for those that know, the Cantonese diaspora is renound for being tighter than two coats of thin paint. So, their trick was to lift all the empty fruit and veg cardboard boxes (sometimes emptying part full ones into others) and use those as carriers when selling their delivery food or carryout.
I've rarely paid for a carrier bag since, it's free, environmentally friendly (recycling!), very convenient and they make great makeshift zeroing targets (look for ones with white bottoms
).
Hope these help, look forward to hearing some tips from fellow cheap b*rstards!
Given the 'cost of living crisis' that people are blabbing about (I'm feeling it in primer/power/projectile prices) I thought I would share some tips.
'Free Postage' for the sender!
Like most of you, the primary benefit of this site for me is flogging stuff. So it stings a bit when you land up paying Royal Fail a fair whack for postage. Some try and keep costs down by using couriers like MyHerpes but they are usually rubbish too as staff on minimum wage and not particularly bright, often delivering to the wrong address or putting parcels in bins etc.
So, the first tip?
Royal Fail offer a 'Special Delivery Guaranteed' service which costs a little bit more than 1st Class with all the trimmings (signed for, tracked, insured etc), think around £8 for a small parcel and £12+ for larger ones.
This service is insured to £100 or something like that, with extra costing not much more. So I now send all my sales via this service, full whack.
Why? Well if Royal Fail deliver on time, you 'customer' is very happy. However, if they don't deliver before the promised time, you can claim the costs of postage back so long as you have the reference number and reciept stating the cost of the service. It's easy to track a parcel online, see when it was delivered, and claim the money back.
Tracking- https://www.royalmail.com/track-your-item
Claim form- Claims Centre
There are a couple of caveats like not offering this service to remote addresses (think seperare islands) or accepting before last collection times (although they will happily let you pay for it!).
I'd say it's very much worthwhile as when using this service, I'd say Royal Fail have been late about 50% of the time, usually because the recipient's address is usually visited by the postie after the 1pm guaranteed time, which is a decent return for 'free postage'. They send you a check in the post about a week after you make the claim. May depend on where you send stuff from, and I have been known to use some 'more remote' post office locations...
Do I 'feel bad' in any way for doing this? Not at all, Royal Fail offer this deal and I'm taking them up on their terms. This is the same company that put innocent postmasters in the slammer for years on flase charges so f**k them...
Tip 2, save money on shopping bags without having to lug them to the shop.
Learnt this one from a short stint working as a waiter at a Chinese (Cantonese) Restaurant a while ago at weekends, they paid in cash and food!
So, for those that know, the Cantonese diaspora is renound for being tighter than two coats of thin paint. So, their trick was to lift all the empty fruit and veg cardboard boxes (sometimes emptying part full ones into others) and use those as carriers when selling their delivery food or carryout.
I've rarely paid for a carrier bag since, it's free, environmentally friendly (recycling!), very convenient and they make great makeshift zeroing targets (look for ones with white bottoms
).Hope these help, look forward to hearing some tips from fellow cheap b*rstards!
