Small parcel postage in volume.

[Huntsman]

I have a business idea, it needs to ship about 150 small parcels a day to be worthwhile.

I think I can sell for £4 inc postage.

The product, packaging, labelling etc would be about £1.40. There's some costs in marketing, online selling, web hosting, banking fees etc so I guess that gets me up to £2 total cost, and I would like to make a profit of £1 on each sale, so £3, leaving me £1 to spend on postage.

I guess that's a bit of an arse about face way of looking at it.

So the question is, how do I ship 150 parcels a day, think jar of marmalade size/weight, or round tin of sweets, for £1 each?

[anonymous-user]

if you make it qualify it as a large letter (353mm x 250mm x 25mm) and less than <250g then it would be 99p + VAT

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 27th February 16:17

[khushy]

Sounds like a ball ache - 150 parcels =

150 labels
150 orders to process
150 payments to check
150 addresses to check
2 mins/order process = 300 mins = 6 hours of packing time
PLUS - someone has to enter shipping details on each order for the post office or courier x 150

For £1 profit unless you can get someone else to do it - personally I would not bother - better ways to earn £150

Selling the Big Issue - bin man - McD’s would be less hassle

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

That's a lot of work for £150 a day.

Some major traders on eBay (for example) must be getting terrific deals on postage. My guess is they must be shipping in 1000s though.

[anonymous-user]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

That's a lot of work for £150 a day.

Some major traders on eBay (for example) must be getting terrific deals on postage. My guess is they must be shipping in 1000s though.

Royal Mail offers volume based discounts of up to 17.5% (i.e. cost £1.81 for a 1kg parcel on 48 hours with sorting at the dispatch end) if you post over 2,000 parcels per day

I expect there are bigger discounts available for larger volumes

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

JPJPJP said:

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

That's a lot of work for £150 a day.

Some major traders on eBay (for example) must be getting terrific deals on postage. My guess is they must be shipping in 1000s though.

Royal Mail offers volume based discounts of up to 17.5% (i.e. cost £1.81 for a 1kg parcel on 48 hours with sorting at the dispatch end) if you post over 2,000 parcels per day

I expect there are bigger discounts available for larger volumes

Yep, I bought a 2.2 kg Autocourse for £1.50 with free P&P just to see how it would come. It came via Royal Mail, so who knows what price they paid for shipping.

[MrSparks]

There is absolutely no way this will be profitable.

You can’t market a product for 0.60p per sale (if you can please help me!)

Don’t forget staffing costs, packaging materials, payment processor fees, website costs etc.

Even if you could it’s way too much work and overhead for a potential £150 a day profit.

What about selling on Amazon and putting in FBA? Numbers may still not stack but at least you don’t have to put 150 labels on packets every day!

[MrSparks]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

Yep, I bought a 2.2 kg Autocourse for £1.50 with free P&P just to see how it would come. It came via Royal Mail, so who knows what price they paid for shipping.

On eBay? They won’t be making money on this. They are more likely using it as a loss leader to keep higher volume of sales which helps keep your eBay seller ratings when parcels are late or missing or out of stock.

We have a product line with the same purpose.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

MrSparks said:

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

Yep, I bought a 2.2 kg Autocourse for £1.50 with free P&P just to see how it would come. It came via Royal Mail, so who knows what price they paid for shipping.

On eBay? They won’t be making money on this. They are more likely using it as a loss leader to keep higher volume of sales which helps keep your eBay seller ratings when parcels are late or missing or out of stock.

We have a product line with the same purpose.

It was a firm with 100k+ feedback, so unlikely?

Even so, I reckon the cheapest I could have posted it for was £7.

[Ean218]

Look up Babz Media and Post Office fraud.

[MrSparks]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

It was a firm with 100k+ feedback, so unlikely?

Even so, I reckon the cheapest I could have posted it for was £7.

I don’t mean feedback. eBay tracks lots of metrics like late delivery, out of stock, refunds, cancelled orders etc. And you have to meet a really small percentage target of each.

So if you’re selling 10 items a day and Dispatch one late it can take you away from top rated seller as your late delivery rate is 10% but the target is about 2% for top rated seller.

Shift 100 and the odd late delivery doesn’t affect you so much.

Then scale the numbers up accordingly but you can always benefit from an easy, fast moving product line to keep the stats up.

It’s usually something cheap, in demand and unlikely to be returned.

[russy01]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

Yep, I bought a 2.2 kg Autocourse for £1.50 with free P&P just to see how it would come. It came via Royal Mail, so who knows what price they paid for shipping.

They just aren’t making money on it. 100k feedback on Ebay means diddly squat...

I wouldn’t waste your time op, basic maths isn’t it?Unless you are shoving the same 150 iPhone leads into Jiffy bags and being done within an hour and can market and sell for free and still return £1 a go - then I’d look elsewhere.

[Huntsman]

Thanks all. very interesting.

I am employed in industry in a reasonable career, we're looking for something for my wife to do now our boy is starting school.

[Ph1listine]

I work for https://www.parcelhub.co.uk and your volumes sound about right to get on their carrier contracts.