The Cost of Posting

dindude

I'm sure it was only a year or two ago I could post a guitar for £10 to £20. The last couple, insured for between £500 and £1000, have cost me £40 to £50 to ship in the UK, and a neck cost me £12 today on Parcelforce 48hr. What am I doing wrong, what do you do / who do you use? For guitars I do insist on UPS or one of the betterer carriers, rather than herpes and the like.

TTony

It should only be £30 using UPS via Interparcel? Unless you're measuring / weighing wrongly, or prices have gone up a lot recently ...

FelineGuitars

Neck postage has long been £8-10 or more

I reacall you could post a guitar by Parcelforce for £12-15 but they won't insure and no guarantee how gentle they'll be with your guitar.

Since using UPS the cost has been higher (but I insist on insured and usually sending £1500 -£3000 guitars & if you insure via UPS it's an additional 1% to the cost so that'll add 15-30).

dindude

FelineGuitars said:

Neck postage has long been £8-10 or more

I reacall you could post a guitar by Parcelforce for £12-15 but they won't insure and no guarantee how gentle they'll be with your guitar.

Since using UPS the cost has been higher (but I insist on insured and usually sending £1500 -£3000 guitars & if you insure via UPS it's an additional 1% to the cost so that'll add 15-30).

Have a wisdom, I think the insurance is a bigger hit than I accounted for. It's odd though as sellers in the classifieds here generally knock off £20 or so if not shipping, so I assume they are able to ship for this price, I certainly haven't found a reliable way recently.

gavin_axecaster

dindude said:

I'm sure it was only a year or two ago I could post a guitar for £10 to £20. The last couple, insured for between £500 and £1000, have cost me £40 to £50 to ship in the UK, and a neck cost me £12 today on Parcelforce 48hr. What am I doing wrong, what do you do / who do you use? For guitars I do insist on UPS or one of the betterer carriers, rather than herpes and the like.

When Royal Mail was gearing up for the sell-off they re-vamped all their parcel sizes/prices.
Buoyed with the profits of the previous year's parcels, they hiked up parcel prices to ridiculous levels, scrapped all weight bands between 1-2kg and also brought in a new exclusion for items over 610mm in length. Previously necks could be sent via Royal Mail as long as they were in long narrow rectangular boxes (they were classed as tubes). In the revamp Royal Mail changed the wording of the length exclusions on all literature (except the "pricefinder" tool on the website!) to specify "cylinder" for anything over 610mm.
Hence necks can no longer be sent with Royal Mail unless in tubes, which due to the weight of sturdy 3mm neck sized tubes puts them over the 1kg weight band and doubles the price. (previously I could send a neck 2nd Class Recorded for under £5 - now due to the weight of the tube it is £9.10)
So Post Offices now automatically ring up necks in rectangular boxes with Parcelforce at £11.99 for Parcelforce 48.
For necks I now use Collect+ - I always pay for the "standard" service (usually arrive in 2 days) with signature for £6.59.
The week leading up to Christmas I switched to using UPS via Access Point dropoff - £7.79 and usually 48hr service.