alternative to royal mail?

[luckoftheirish93]

hi royal mail charges an arm and a leg to post items these days and charges you £1.10 extra to record it, due to some highly suspect claims recent from ebayers apparently not receiving their parcels "apparently" i was wondering if their is a cheaper courier service for items?

china post is recroded and i have recieved stuff that would cost me 5 or 6 pounds to send with a 28p stamp on it!!

also ebay can put a picture of that ugly man with a heading saying we guarantee you get your item or you get your money back, it invites scammers and ebay aren't going to wait in a post office or deal with the man many mesages sellers have to deal with.

[Geegee83]

Do you use franking? Helps a little with the cost...

[JamesNorth101]

PPI also can help with costs, personally prefer it to franking.

There are cheaper alternatives about, but only for items that cost above the £4 mark in postage fees.

[rsot]

Only way cheaper is to get corporate/business account with tons of perks. Royal mail is gruesome for many people but charge the buyer tracking and signature confirmation if you deem fit

[tmastermind]

I use to frank mail but the costs worked out as being almost no different due to inks rent and franking labels, not to mention the pain in the backside it was when trying to frank mail for the next day and forgot to move the day ahead on the stamp!

I also used the "drop and Go" service which time wise is quite nice but same costs as Royal Mail charge normally but saves queueing!

I'm looking at other couriers soon and dispatch bay is looking like a good alternative but I'm still not the the threshold I need to be in order to qualify to make a saving.

What's worse it that recorded or "signed for" as its now called it not worth the £1.10 paper its printed on as often no signature is collected and items can be left with a neighbour with this service. I just get the POP now instead