Re: first post - again

> paul spracklin wrote:
> 
> The options?  They operate a guaranteed 48 hr delivery service which
> is more expensive than using a private overnight courier.  SO plants
> can be sent by overnight courier at a cost of £15 for the first
> 10kgs.   This is staggeringly expensive but there are NO options.
> 
>I agree with everything Paul says about parcel force. Before I learnt better we used them for delivering fresh cut herbs to London wholesale markets. The stuff arrived days later, soggy and black and we were nearly ruined in consequence. Customers cringe indeed when we mention their name and beg us to send by any other method, pack camel if necessary regardless of the cost. However until we discovered Horticultural logistics of Tewkesbury, we were compelled to risk the post office for  small international deliveries of live plants which in effect meant that the customers either had to order a thousand plants that could be delivered by international freighters (eg Gondrand of Lyons) or do with out  .....until last year when the post office salesman came round, begged us to give them another try and promised to keep a personal eye on a consignment of 100 Artemisia pontica  to South Eastern France. Surprise, surprise!, the parcel went missing for six months, yes really, six wh!
ole months and the salesman who had sold the idea on the whizzo computerised satellite global tracking system said that once parcels had crossed the channel, they were out of their hands. Anyway by then, for domestic deliveries we had already switched in rapid succession to City Link (much the same, only more expensive) Fed Ex (twice was enough) Interlink who were fine for several years but got taken over and  decided we were too small to be worth bothering with any longer and now we are with NCN who claim to be plant specialists and in the last four months haven't fouled up once, so far as I know, but thats only for plants, we haven't started sending out fresh cut yet. not only that but we can charge our customers £7.50 next day delivery  on the first five kilos or two plants and still make enough to cover our packing costs. We haven't tried them yet for for small internationals too small for the Tewkesbury lot to deal with but I will keep you posted. Incidentally the last !
time we used Gondrand for an Italian delivery, the plants spent longer in the Florence warehouse waiting to be delivered to Volterra than the rest of the journey put together. Our client got so exasperated he drove to Florence and collected the parcel himself.
It's an international problem.
Anthony
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