Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Angry
Given the competitive growth in the mail / parcel delivery service sector and the fact that you're not fussy about who performs this element of your business then perhaps you should do as you suggest and consider one of the alternatives to RM.
In essence, if your business plan projections don't hold much faith in the service levels offered by RM then perhaps exploring the possibility of a service level agreement with an alternate provider is the answer.
That said, if your business is operated through a service provider / middleman such as ebay you might want to consider an alternative to that as they are moving towards a "no postage fee" model in many categories.
Given the current economic climate vendors who are active in these categories and unable to absorb / offset these losses effectively - without passing the costs on to their customers - will undoubtedly falter or fail.
Without wishing to sound like a merchant of doom - and good / reliable postage services aside - the days of smaller mail order startup business thriving in an online environment such as ebay are numbered.
That's exactly how they'd like it.
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At the moment I don't have an alternative to RM. For the forseeable future (12 months) I'm going to be relying on customers sending me items via 1st or second class mail and me using the same service back. Nobody else does simple door-to-door delivery of mail at that level. You're right that I don't care who takes care of the mail. This is why my attitude is if the RM workers won't do the job I'll happily pay someone else in their place.
It's also why they'll never get one iota of sympathy from me. The worst thing is if my business goes under as a result of orders being lost or delayed, there's not a single thing I can do about it.