I bought a Wynnster Phoenix 4 on EBay last night and paid £12 for next day delivery (We're going away on Friday so I hope it arrives!!!) The tent weights about 22kg & the seller used Parcel2go. They do cheaper services if the buyer can wait, unlike me who has left everything to the last minute
Hm. I wonder what I'm doing wrong here. Quotes for a Cabanon Antigua with sun canopy within mainland Britain (to London) are all around £50 from Parcel2Go, PayPerParcel and Interparcel, all 48 hr delivery. ParcelMonkey quotes £17 for 48 hour delivery, though, which seems almost too good to be true by comparison. Unfortunately, I'm not in control of the packing (it's being brought to me, not sent from me) so there's nothing I can do about the parcel sizes. The quote is for three boxes, largest size 105cmx55x55 (the main tent canvas). None of the packages are over 17kg.
Yep I recommended Paisley Freight, I have a kind of tent collecting "thing" lol and mostly use them for collections. Next day delivery for £25 - up to 50 kilos and I have had three parcels, usually tent, poles & carpet/footprint done in one. I think they may have charged me about £30 once for a 60kg job.
Parcelmonkey for smaller tents, they do up to 30kg I think for about £13ish.
Yes, ParcelMonkey looked very reasonable for this consignment even in comparison with Paisley Freight, but consigning a new (well, new secondhand!) Cabanon to anyone without recommendation is fraught with anxiety.
I have just had a caravan awning delivered by paisley freight.it was sent from northern ireland to south wales , so did take a bit longer obviously.
It was collected on friday and I received it yesterday.
but before I bought this one, I emailed them about another awning and annexe which was in several bags, and they said as long as the total weight was under 50kg the price for mainland delivery would still be £25.
They answered emails very quickly too.
They used city link to collect and deliver . tracking number provided , and they said insurance cover included in price was £10 per kilo.
Box was a bit battered when it arrived though, looked like it had been dragged about rather than lifted.
I'd definitely wrap the tent bag up in something - having had to recently submit a claim to one of these parcel couriers (a process which has put me off I have to admit) - I can vouch for how roughly they treat their packages. On a brighter note I received some tent poles a while back and that was just wrapped in bits of brown boxes which had been broken down and wrapped around the poles & sealed with tons of parcel tape - it was really strong & took us ages to get into them! Simple & cheap thats the thing with large parcels they can easily cost a fortune just in packaging.
Just had an awning annexe delivered by parcel 2 go. Cost was £15 for a 15kg parcel, and included insurance up to £120.
This was next day delivery, collected yesterday and arrived this morning . great sevice , they sent several email updates too, to let me know it had been collected and when it had got to the dhl depot and another giving tracking number .
In the end I used ParcelMonkey. Under £20 for a Cabanon Antigua and sun canopy on - allegedly 48 hr delivery - for which Parcel2Go PayPerParcel and Interfreight all quoted nearly £50. However, two of the bags rather disconcertingly, turned up at nearly 9pm the night before they were due to arrive ("delivery between 8am and 6pm" indeed!), the other one - containing the frame - not until the following morning. All present and undamaged in the end, but a worrying 12 hours.
On the well known internet auction site there's a picture of a white van on nearly all the tent entries offering a courier service. I won a tent in Dundee(around 250 miles from here), he picked it up in the afternoon and had it here the following morning...Well worth 25 quid.
Have sent a few (lighter ebay stuff) parcels lately with Parcel Monkey, all good until something went wrong. They don't have a contact number (and wouldn't answer emails) so after the courier delivered three consignments to one address in error it took me almost two weeks to get them to pick up and re-deliver. I even contacted trading standards for advice in the end. Lost my buyers (ebay items) and had to pay a second round of postage to send to the new buyer. An absolute nightmare!
On the other hand, I have a query with Paisley at the mo, the courier has mixed up some parcels (don't know if I'm just unlucky with couriers lol) and they answer my emails promptly and liaise with the courier on my behalf.
Just my experience with both - when things go wrong you can't rely on Parcel Monkey to sort it out.