I use Hermes, 100 parcels a month or thereabouts (it’s just a standard account btw, I’m not getting preferential treatment or anything). Very happy tbh, they’ve lost I think 3 or 4 of my parcels but that’s out of over a thousand and in each case the compensation process was quick and easy. Quite a few short delays, 1 or 2 days late, I probably don’t know about all of these but I’d say maybe 1 in 20 or so get delayed at some stage. The parcelshop dropoff service is ace, no more hanging around for a pickup or trying to find a courier warehouse in the middle of nowhere. And of course they are cheap! That’s what brought me over to them in the first place but tbh, I’ve been happy with the service anyway. The website has some bugs but they do seem to be gradually stamping them out and they’re reasonably quick for manual fixes (I have one parcel from 2015 that’s stuck at “not delivered” and nobody seems to know how to fix it! I don’t really care but that’s not a really inspiring sign… Parcel status often doesn’t update unless you poke it so you can have 30 parcels “awaiting delivery” on teh summary but 20 turn out to be delivered.
Only exceptional bad experience I had was a car stereo I posted with them- it weighed a good couple of kilos but delivery driver thought it was a good idea to throw it over a 6 foot fence! That went back and forwards a bit as they said it was electronics so not covered for accidental damage, I argued it wasn’t accidental damage anyway. Got a payout but it did take time and was annoying.
I’m not happy with them as a company, their employment practices seem shit, though to be fair they’re not the only courier that this is true of. Watching to see what comes of this.
If it’s a one-off it’s worth trying discount codes and offers for parcelmonkey, interparcel and the like.