With over 400 couriers around the world in service, knowing which ones to use for your eCommerce business can be daunting. However, it will be far easier to determine which shipping solutions suit your company better if you understand the various types of couriers available and the services they provide. This article will discuss some basic information about courier services in Singapore that should be useful to build your eCommerce shipping strategy.
Principal distinctions between the postal service and the courier service
Pricing
Postal services are easy and reasonably affordable: delivery costs are often paid for by you. Courier services offer delivery services that are fast and efficient – at a price.
Quality of Service
While postal services offer competitive shipping rates, you run the risk of getting what you pay for – longer delivery times, infrequent monitoring, and lack of customer service.
It is also worth remembering that not all postal services are created equal – some nations would have a more efficient service than others.
Courier providers provide priced services that include extra costs such as
fuel surcharges, surcharges for remote areas, and fees for parcel handling.
Even, these pricier deals will provide the company with a lot of value. To ensure that your product is managed correctly and gets where it needs
to be in the given timeframe, you should decide whether it’s worth paying.
How shipping operates internationally
Courier services will be responsible for handling your package from the country of origin to the destination country when you use an express courier to ship things internationally, for example, shipping from Singapore to Australia. For the postal services, the procedure is somewhat different. For instance, if you use USPS to ship anything to Hong Kong, USPS can handle the shipping until the package is delivered to the destination country’s customs department. When customs pass, the postal service of the destination country can handle the remainder of the delivery.
Disadvantages of using the postal service for overseas shipping
It would help if you remembered a few things when shipping abroad because of postal services. It might be hard to get assistance if there are issues with the distribution of your parcel. Since the postal service does not manage the entire distribution of your item and monitoring may not be consistent across postal services, finding a customer service agent who can figure out where your package has gone astray can be a challenge.
On the other hand, because express couriers must deliver your package for the whole ride, it would be easier to find a customer service representative who can tell you exactly what is happening. If duties and taxes apply to your shipment, using postal facilities can also be problematic. Many express couriers provide services for a better delivery experience (at an extra cost) to pre-pay duties and taxes.
This feature is not provided by postal services, which means that the customs department would contact the recipient and wait for payment directly. Unless the payment is settled, it will not deliver the shipment.
