Tag: online selling during lockdown

With all the crazy stuff going on during lockdown, I found myself wondering, should I be using Royal Mail for online deliveries during the Coronavirus crisis? To explain, here in the UK I have always been very happy to use Royal Mail’s usually excellent International Tracked & Signed service for deliveries to countries outside the UK. Royal Mail’s International Tracked & Signed has always offered a reasonably fast, reasonably fast and reliable delivery service for parcels of modest size (up to WxHxD max 90cm and up to 2 kg), I’ve recommended this service to many people and written about it on my blog and in pottery articles.

More recently I’ve had cause to question this advice I’ve been giving. Corona Virus has caused (directly or indirectly) delays to my international deliveries that have become unsustainable (up to five weeks in one case), so I’ve had to look elsewhere for a suitable delivery service to meet the needs of myself and my customers.

There are so many parcel services out there, it can be difficult to know where to start, especially when you are so used to one particular service, it can take a lot to make the change, at this point it’s worth me saying, I’d be really interested to hear your experiences of using delivery companies and service, who you may have tried and who has come up trumps. By all means investigate prices and timings through the likes of websites such as Parcel Hub and Parcel Hero, they’re great for getting a feel for prices and timings, helping you to build a picture of what’s possible and how it will suit your operation.

Like a lot of potters working form home, I don’t produce loads of goods for sale, my work tends to be one-off carefully thought out pieces that take a lot of time and thinking to get just right, they are precious to me and it’s desperately important that they arrive with my customers, wherever in the world they are, safely, securely and on time.

So, who am I using to deliver my pottery to the wider world? At the moment my courier of choice for international deliveries is UPS for small businesses. The things that I like about UPS are:

• USA very reasonable prices, if you follow my guidelines (below)
• Reliable tracked delivery with real time tracking updates
• A parcel size that suits most of my work (more of this later)
• Generous weight allowance (especially compared with Royal Mail)
• £1000 insurance supplement in case of loss (£5 extra)
• Local drop-off or collection

There are negatives, deliveries further afield than the States, can end up costing a lot more. A delivery to Canada or Australia might cost you twice that of a delivery to USA – a big difference, especially if you are offering ‘free’ delivery through your Etsy shop or other online sales.

This is what I do to keep my pottery delivery costs, UK to the States to a reasonable cost with UPS. It is quite likely that using another courier will result in similar results, but you’ll have to check that out for yourself (let me know what you find!).

These are the two UPS charts that I found really interesting…

This first chart shows UPS parcel sizes, the size that interests me most is the ‘S’ – small size. with an allowed volume up to 25,000 cubic cms. This is very close (slightly greater volume) to a standard 15″ x 10″ x 10″ cardboard box.

This second chart shows the UPS pricing, UK to the States, again it’s that Small size that interests me. See the price – little more than Royal Mail.

My guidelines for using UPS

If you want reasonably priced deliveries from UK to the States for regular sized pottery, here are my guidelines:

• Access the small business section of the UPS website (link below) – you’ll find it quite easy to navigate and use.
• Use UPS’s ‘S’ or Small size parcel.
• You should have 5kg to play with (unlike Royal Mails rather mean 2kg) so you can be generous with the card packing.
• Find a box to suit – currently I use a single wall card box measuring 15″ x 10″ x 10″, but I have to modify it slightly to create a new fold line else when measured externally it is slightly above the 25,000 cubic cm max for small size (most box manufacturers list the internal measurements of their boxes, so a box that may appear the right size is actually slightly too big).
• I always double-box, so I use a smaller, preferably double-wall box inside the package, my favourites measure 10″ x 7″ x 7″ and 9″ x 6″ x 6″
• Between the two boxes I’ll use corn starch loose fill, polystyrene or more cardboard – it’s up to you.
• You will need to supply two copies of a ‘commercial invoice’ with your package – one attached (use a clear document envelope), one inside the package.

Of course your products may require perhaps squarer packaging, so a 10″ x 10″ x 10″ or 11″ x 11″ x 11″ box (a favourite of mine with Royal Mail) could be ideal. (Again, this larger size measured externally does get very close to the limit of the UPS 25,000 cubic cms small size so check external measurements carefully and adjust the box if necessary to keep your costs in check).

Finally, this is the link I use to get to the right section of the UPS website…
https://www.ups.com/smallbusiness/home

I hope this helps you with your deliveries abroad. Good luck with your pottery.

My Etsy shop at olleypottery.com is a showcase for my work available for sale with delivery worldwide.

Wow, who saw that coming? What looked like a nasty local crisis in Wuhan, China was suddenly taking over Italian hospitals and then spreading to Britain, the States and everywhere else. How would I continue selling pottery / ceramics online during the Corona Virus crisis?

I was definitely shocked like everyone else when CV-19 arrived at our shores. Apart for possible health implications, I was concerned for my graphic design business, and also for my pottery work which I have been slowly building up. It suddenly felt that, out of the blue, everything was being threatened.

The graphic design has been very badly affected, and one can only hope this will prove to be just short term. Our clients have been quite wide ranging, but of late a lot of our business has come from sectors, events, education and religious/charity. All three sectors have been forced to close their doors with the result that we have lost our main sources of work and income.

However, pottery has continued and with the advantage of more time to invest in my ceramic skills. I’ve continued to make and sell pottery online (not in vast numbers – that isn’t my thing), commissions have been popular and I keep developing my knowledge and breadth of styles, all the time trying to fine-tune my work to make it more personal, individual, unique.

The big issue for me has been delivering my work around the world, the lowest point was when I ventured out to take my well-prepared packages to a main Post Office, only to find it closed due to staff shortages caused by Corona Virus. It really hit home at that point that this was a significant problem – if the Post Office couldn’t operate how would businesses that rely on sending goods be able to function?

I wrote twice to our new MP, Laura Trott, who got back to me swiftly on both occasions with replies that she was raising the issue of Post Offices in the House of Commons. It worked as the Post Office re-opened and has been functioning since. I have been using the Post Office (Royal Mail) to send packages around the UK throughout the crisis (remember the Prime Minister told us to work from home if we could).

International deliveries have proven a different matter. On one day I sent two parcels to the States, similar address, but very different results. I have always used Royal Mail’s International Tracked & Signed and until the crisis it has been a great service that has allowed one to send modest-sized parcels (W x H x D 90 cm max, 2kg max) around the world at reasonable cost (typically a little over £20 to the States). Some parcels have taken up to five weeks to arrive, the delays being caused by backlogs and staff shortages at customs. Those two parcels I sent one day, one took a little over a week to arrive, the other five weeks. For someone who has prided themselves on efficiency I found this disturbing an embarrassing, I put so much time and skill into my pottery, I hated the fact that I and my customers were being left in a sort of limbo by the crisis.

I would hasten to add, I in no way blame the hard-working employees of our postal services, either here of abroad. The counter staff at our Post Office are always so helpful and our own Postman is a beacon of reliability. As I say, I continue to use Royal Mail’s tracked service, including Special Delivery (next working day) for my UK deliveries.

I had to find a more reliable service for my international deliveries. Fear not, I found one that I believe to currently be the best available for my pottery, that will be the subject of my next post.

My Etsy shop at olleypottery.com is a showcase for my work available for sale with delivery worldwide.