As we all know, shipping is one of the essential parts of selling online. Each country has its own shipping laws. In other words, you need to know which shipping carriers for online orders to choose from. E-commerce shipping is slightly different from mailing. It is important to carefully consider fees on each parcel, proper documentation, delivery terms and most important – the quality of the shipment.
The quality of shipping is the main factor that impacts a customer’s review. For this reason, we created this article, which includes a lot of research on TOP 7 shipping carriers for online orders in the UK. Also, we will advise on how to get the best shipping rates and automate your shipping.
Of course, we should start with one of the oldest and most experienced shipping carriers. It is the official United Kingdom postal service and courier company established in 1516. Nowadays Royal Mail offers a wide range of delivery options. Besides their long-term practice in the UK, they also managed to spread their services all around the globe. So, it is a great option to ship goods not only in the UK but also for worldwide shipping. On the other hand, it is important to mention, that they do not provide their services in the USA. Despite that, they are one of the most trusted shipping carriers for sellers based in the UK.
This shipping company belongs to the Hermes group, which was founded in Germany. myHermes was launched in 2009 and their main competitive advantage is myHermes ParcelShops. They managed to create over 4500 ParcelShops all around the UK. This service is really handy and cost-efficient. All you need to do is simply drop-off your parcel at the nearest myHermes ParcelShop and myHermes will deliver it within 2 days. Another service they offer is delivery from the doorstep, which takes 3 days to ship.
Back in the day, Parcelforce was a part of Royal Mail Group, and until 1990 it was called Royal Mail Parcels. Parcelforce is extremely popular – they manage to deliver more than 7 million parcels each year. It is a cost-effective shipping carrier, based in the UK, but delivering parcels worldwide.
DPD can deliver parcels to over 230 different countries and employs over 68.000 delivery experts to make it possible. DPD UK has integrated unrivalled ground-based service to Europe and Air Express service to the rest of the world. This shipping carrier is one of the most popular options.
Another shipping giant is UPS. This shipping company has a network of more than 50.000 couriers around the world. They provide quick and convenient deliveries. The main reason they can do this is that they employ more than 454.000 people globally. With these numbers, it is reasonable that you should trust your parcels to them. They have suitable shipping rates for online sellers. Also, quality shipments from UPS UK all around the world!
Parcel2GO shipping carrier for online orders stand out from others with the best shipping quotes. Of course, it depends on the size of your parcel, but it is the best option for small ones. Parcel2Go offers a drop-off method when you simply leave your parcel in a certain place. Another way is to select a courier for pick up. To get a Parcel2GO shipping label all you have to do is add parcel measurements!
One of the most popular shipping companies, which can provide services all around the world. FedEx UK even offers you next day delivery! They have more than 400.000 team members from all around the world. FedEx shipping carrier for sellers in the UK offers many delivery solutions: airport services, motorized vehicles and Air & ocean freight forwarding services.
It is a common fact that everyone wants what is best for their business. Each online seller wants what’s best for their customers – best goods, best customer service, best shipping carriers… With the last one, we can actually help! Nowadays, many companies claim their shipping services to be the best. Unfortunately, reality might disappoint both you and your customer. To help you avoid the unpleasant experiences, we selected the Top 3 shipping carriers for online sellers based in the US.
Of course, United States Postal Services stands first in line. This shipping company has maintained its reputation from 1971. Above all, through these years USPS gained their popularity and customer trust. USPS has more than 7.5 million employees, and more than 105.000 of them are military veterans. This is one of the largest, well-known shipping carriers for online sellers based in the US.
Another, maybe even a bigger competitive advantage is their pricing. Besides their major popularity and size, they offer the best shipping rates. They are offering low prices for items of lighter weight. Officially, they are one of the cheapest shipping companies for any parcel weighing less than 2 pounds.
FedEx is one of the world’s leading shipping carriers, which was founded in 1971. Federal Express has well-developed air and ground networks. Interesting fact, that they separated these two networks, and their main focus is on express deliveries. Also, according to reviews, you can trust their delivery time and tracking information is available at each checkpoint.
As mentioned before, their main focus is on FedEx Express. The focus on this service is apparent from the fact that 57% of FedEx revenue comes from this service. Their total revenue in 2018 was $65.4 billion, which means that many online sellers decided to choose them. That might be due to FedEx’s competitive shipping quotes – low rates, which depend on where you want to ship.
United Parcel Service is a well-known multinational shipping carrier located in the US. They offer their services in more than 220 countries and territories. Similar to FedEx, it has air and ground networks. The main difference is that UPS is hub-and-spoke, in other words – everything is interconnected. So, whether your chosen shipping method is ground or air, each of them follows a similar flow from origin to destination.
UPS 2018 revenue was $58 billion, which was made of 5.2 billion global deliveries of packages and documents. Also, they claim that they have made pick-ups from 1.5 million unique customers and delivered parcels to 9.1 million customers. UPS employees are unionized, which positively affects the reliability of services. According to them, they can reach every address in North America and Europe.
Of course you can create accounts with each one of the top shipping carriers. However, the constant switching from one account to another would get old fairly quickly. It would be much easier if you could work with all of them in a single place. Multiorders shipping management software has integrations with all top shipping companies, which allow you to fulfil orders with a few clicks.
As soon as you receive an order, simply click on the chosen shipping carrier and Multiorders will do the rest. The system will fill out the customer details and fetch you the rates for the current order. This way, you can even send each parcel with a different shipping company. All your package measurements and customer’s information is automatically synced to the selected shipping company.
After you ship an order, Multiorders automatically marks your order as dispatched on the corresponding marketplace and adds a tracking number to it. Because of USPS, FedEx, Royal Mail and other shipping integrations, the system automatically adds tracking information to each order and triggers your store to update your customer. That way, you won’t need to check and update any shipping information.
Multiple integrations with all of the most popular sales channels, allows Multiorders to create a consolidated system to fully proceed your orders. In other words, you can run your entire business in a single dashboard and connect shipping and store management in one software. Multiorders order management system automatically adds all changes to each marketplace. This is a time-efficient way to modify stock-levels, pricing, etc. In this manner, our users can work with multiple shipping carriers, as well as with multiple sales channels. All you need to do is register for account on Multiorders and try it for free. Every user has access to all our features from the moment they sign up.
Monthly
Yearly20% off
Royal Mail integration
This is the cost that we are being charged by the provider, to be able to connect your Royal Mail account.
Add £25/mo
(billed annually)
per month
Start free trial
Popular
(billed annually)
per month
Start free trial(billed annually)
per month
Start free trial
per month
Get a quoteThe peak of multichannel e-commerce management is just a few clicks away and you don’t even need a credit card to get started!
