Parcel Pete is the mascot for ipostparcels, an online parcel delivery service. ipostparcels is owned by UK Mail Group PLC and competes directly with online parcel comparison and aggregation services such as Parcel2Go and the recently deceased ParcelBright.
Whats the difference between UK Mail and ipostparcels?
ipostparcels.com is intended to be a quick and affordable way to send parcels with next day delivery and collection. To send a parcel with ipostparcels you just need to head over to the ipostparcels.com website enter your delivery details and print your label.
To ship with UK Mail directly you would need to open an account with UK Mail. If you are a business shipping a growing number of parcels every day, it may well pay off to open an account with UK Mail. If you are shipping occasionally, ipostparcels may just do the job.
Getting help from ipostparcels happens over email and twitter. If you are shipping with UK Mail directly you will have an account manager and a contact telephone number too.
The Buzz
ipostparcels has been pretty well received. As of July last year, ipostparcels have delivered over a million parcels and have a score of 7.7 on trustpilot. It's probably not fair to compare this score to the delivery comparison websites we mentioned earlier as the business model here is not the same, but comparing it to other carriers results in a fairly decent score. In fact, ipostparcels score a little higher on trustpilot than their parent company, UK Mail.
Parcel Pete himself has been very well received. With his own #parcelpete hashtag, Pete's only criticism seems to be around him skipping leg day.
The Cost
We shipped an extra small parcel to the same postcode on the 2/3 day service and were quoted £3.99 excluding VAT if we dropped off the parcel. If we wanted the parcel collected there was an additional £1.25 plus VAT to pay.
You can view ipostparcels rate card here.
Our Two Cents
We like working with UK Mail. Their technology that we integrate with is some of the best we've seen, and not just in the UK.
The feedback we get from customers around UK Mail is mostly always positive and their support is approachable and helpful. For this reason, we figure ipostparcels is worth exploring more.
Have you used ipostparcels?
We would love to hear your feedback on ipostparcels. Get in touch on twitter @Shiptheory or drop us a message in the comments below and share your experience.
