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Forget Parcel2Go, Try Interparcel!

Friday, 30 November 2007

The refund I was supposed to receive from Parcel2Go a week ago has still not arrived but I thought I would extend this post - Parcel2Go Poor Experience - by explaining how I actually managed to get my parcel delivered.
 
I was about to give up on getting Jess's parcel over to Wet West Wales but we agreed to try one last time. Interparcel run an affiliate program over at Affiliate Marketing (10% comms). The reason I tried Parcel2Go all those years ago was it was an affiliate program on Tradedoubler (I think). So, Interparcel seemed a logical alternative.

They have a price calculator on the site which means you don't need to login or register to find out what their rates are. They are more expensive than P2G but they offer a wide range of couriers, rather than just DHL as P2G seems to offer.

Given the two failed collections were with DHL, I decided to give my favourite courier a whirl - City Link. We each have our preferred couriers. My top list is City Link and TNT. The bottom of my list now is DHL and it used to by Parcel Force, but they seem to be getting better. It would be natural human behaviour to disagree with me on the order of this list but hey, I'm making up the rules here!

Anyhow, I looked for some Interparcel discount coupon voucher codes but couldn't find anything on the web. I did find that if you register an account with them, you get 5% off each order so I did that.

I placed my order, paying a little extra to use PayPal and waited.

At 1133hrs on the day of collection, Jess emailed me letting me know it had been collected. The next day, it arrived here.

Interparcel have a funky track and trace facility and provide Proof of Delivery (POD) evidence:

City Link POD

Needless to say, I have a new preferred courier broker! For small items, I would use the Royal Mail tracked services. However, for larger shipments, it's Interparcel from now on.

So long Parcel2Go......

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Comments14 Comments

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David Butters

Hi David,
Thanks for the positive feedback. Interparcel has proved to be very successful on our Network and as a result of your blog they are looking in to launching some discount codes!
Thanks
David

Written on Friday 30 November 2007 at 10:50:04 GMT (Permalink)

David

@David Butters - Power to the people! They offer a good service but it's the cost that's put me off beforehand. It's just by way of fate that this time I was 'forced' to use Interparcel by P2G and was pleasently suprised.

Written on Friday 30 November 2007 at 12:48:50 GMT (Permalink)

Liberatas

I have used Parcel2Go many times and on each occassion I get a great service, below the price of Interparcel, fantastic customer serivce etc. DHL have always been great for me as were FedEx and Interparcel dont even have FedEx!

Written on Friday 18 April 2008 at 22:17:09 GMT (Permalink)

steve little

I renently started using parcelpower and have been very happy. Parcel2go let me down on a number of occassion and it was a nightmare trying to get in contact with them.

Written on Monday 19 May 2008 at 17:33:02 GMT (Permalink)

Duncan

Parcel2go are terrible. Awful customer service. Impolite staff. Oftne eating eating whilst talking on the phone. Difficult to understand hard bolton accent!! Avoid like the plaigue. User interparcel for better rates and better service. Plus you can understand them on the phone!!

Written on Monday 02 June 2008 at 12:42:41 GMT (Permalink)

David

I've been sent a link to http://www.personalshipper....

I can't vouch for them but they certainly look the piece.

They also offer guaranteed next day delivery or a refund. Can't say fairer than that!

Written on Friday 20 June 2008 at 07:34:58 GMT (Permalink)

Harris

I had a horrible experience with Parcel2Go, I paid for my parcel to be picked up from the USA and nothing happened so I had to rebook it and rebook it AND REBOOK it. I rebooked it 9 times and still haven't received my parcel. I gave up and had Parcel2Go refund my money. I now use FreightSearch. They have much better customer service and their domestic prices are cheaper.

Written on Thursday 25 September 2008 at 16:00:11 GMT (Permalink)

Harris

The only reason Liberatas says Parcel2Go is good is because they are paid by them. This comment is therefore not real and Parcel2Go have zero legitimate comments. Stick with FreightSearch or Interparcel.

Written on Thursday 25 September 2008 at 16:03:52 GMT (Permalink)

Sidi Edwards

So you had a bad experience. So you write a bad review. I have a company in Vancouver, thats in Canada by the way and I receive my parcels weighing upwards of 65 lbs the next day via parcel2go and Fedex. They have treeated me and other business friends of mine very well. Such is life my man, sometimes things dont go our way, it does not mean you have to complain, sort it and move forward.

Written on Thursday 30 October 2008 at 16:55:08 GMT (Permalink)

David

@Sidi Edwards - Thanks for your comment. Ironic how you suggest that I shouldn't complain about something I disagree with and then you post this comment.

Written on Friday 31 October 2008 at 10:00:34 GMT (Permalink)

Dava

I have used parcel2go around 50-70 times to ship various goods such as jellybeans and car wheels around the UK. I have had 2 late collections and Zero parcels go AWOL. Pretty good service in my opinion.

Written on Thursday 06 November 2008 at 10:26:01 GMT (Permalink)

David

@Dava - Think it's just hit, miss or maybe. Some people seem to have good experiences and others have poor experiences.

The latest one I tried was http://ezdelivery.parcelboo... which collected at 6pm and delivered at 11am the next day - on a 48 hour service using DHL.

I'm intrigued at how many Jelly Beans warrant a courier delivery :D

Written on Thursday 06 November 2008 at 11:37:27 GMT (Permalink)

Martin Baldwin

I have to agree with the poor customer service, I ordered a few items and paid using debit card using their own card payment system not paypal. Then I found out a couple of days later that they had charged me 14 times and had hundreds of pounds of my money. I phoned and phoned and spoke to what I later found was every single member of staff. There is only several staff members. Each one couldn't be bothered and fobbed me off. They asked me to email my bank statements to prove I had been charged so many times. Which I did to everyone that asked. No reply from anyone. I was very disheartened. Why could they not confirm themselves that on that day it was charged 14 times. I spoke to the supervisor, I have my own merchant account and they all have facilities for checking how much they made. After 1 month of trying to sort out I approached my bank, I should have just done this to start off with, but I wanted to save parcel2go from having 13 chargebacks with the fees for each one against them. I am a trader and don't want to fill the banks pockets anymore than anyone else does. Within 1 week parcel2go refunded 12 payments. They wouldn't refund the 13th and I gave up chasing it, I got most of the money back. I have had other experiences where I order pickups and they don't turn up and sometimes I get an email from parcel 2 go saying sorry we had a technical problem, your package was not picked up, (they also don't do this until after 5:30pm) so you can't even take it down the post office last minute if urgent. Then they say we have placed £5 in your prepaid account. You check and there is nothing. I would say 90% of transactions go without a problem, the other 10% customer service is shocking. Just giving my honest opinion, if you have never had a problem then they're great. I've never typed in a company name in google before and got so many complaint forums and disgruntled customers. I can forgive a missed pickup as sometimes its DHL's fault. But on the problems caused by themselves, couldn't they just be more helpful on the phone.

Written on Tuesday 11 November 2008 at 12:26:36 GMT (Permalink)

David

@Martin Baldwin - You seem to sum this thread up very well:

"I would say 90% of transactions go without a problem, the other 10% customer service is shocking."

Like I said before, it's hit miss or maybe. Some people seem to love them and other's seem to hate them. Some have good experiences and other's do not.

In summary to this thread, I'd like to say that no courier can deliver 100% on time every time. Most of the "cheap courier" services are provided by DHL and sometimes they get it wrong. What differentiates a good courier arrangement company from a bad one is customer service. There are those like http://www.interparcel.com/ , http://ezdelivery.parcelboo... and http://www.shippingmanager.... that will provide good, reliable customer service and there are those that don't have enough staff (or properly trained staff or proper systems) to handle the amount of custom they receive.

Choosing a courier that suits your needs is simply a matter of trial and error. As a rule of thumb, the more expensive the service, the higher the customer service you should expect.

Written on Tuesday 11 November 2008 at 14:39:53 GMT (Permalink)

Thank you to all previous commenters.

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