Looking to sell a frame but a quick look at the usual delivery options and I can’t find much cheap. Parcel force keeps coming up as the cheapest on the comparison sites and that is £38 which is way more than it cost me earlier in the year.

It’s over 1m long so that limits the options quite a lot. Has anyone managed to send one with it costing a lot recently?

Posted 5 months ago

How much more than 1m? There’s a magic formula with Parcelforce where you can get it cheap if you cut the box down. I think you can get away with up to about 106cm as long as the height and width aren’t too long. If you can get it around 1m then it’s worth knocking a bit off the other dimensions to see if you can get it in the lower category.

Other option is Paisley Freight, they are the go to for full bikes atm.

Posted 5 months ago

This is what Hermes rules are

Add together the 2 shortest sides and multiply it by 2. Add the length. If the total is less than 245cm, you’re good to go!

If you’re using a ParcelShop or our Courier service, the maximum length is 120cm

So you should be OK so long as the box isn’t too tall and wide. Hmmmmm. Might be a squeeze.

Posted 5 months ago

So you should be OK so long as the box isn’t too tall

Not by my calculations. That leaves about 650mm for the height plus the width. No way it will be that small

Posted 5 months ago

There’s a magic formula with Parcelforce where you can get it cheap if you cut the box down

Yeah, I have been trying that and it’s pretty snug. Might just be possible but I don’t want to under wrap it. That might be plan b

Posted 5 months ago

I use parcelforce all the time as long as it is under 1.5m length and 3m in length and girth you are good to go I use them a lot and costs me around £15 to send a frame under £100 obviously if it is valued at more the compensation costs rise

Posted 5 months ago

used Hermes last without issues. had to trim the box a little but no dramas

Posted 5 months ago

Consider insuring too. I posted a bike via paisley freight, frame got damaged in transit. Even insured it took a lot of work to get recompensed…without insurance I would not have stood a chance

Posted 5 months ago

Hermes have a service called Large and Light or something like that- I don’t think they offer it directly but you can find it on some price comparison sites.

I’m not exactly a fan of Hermes but, insure it and it’ll be fine one way or another.

Posted 5 months ago

I’ve sold 4 different frames recently and sent them all with parcel force. Generally cost about £20 insured. 2 of them were worth about £400. Can’t remember the length of them though. But 2 will have been over 1m.

I just went direct to the parcelforce website. You can usually get a discount code for something like 15% off if you do a Google search.

Posted 5 months ago

I recently sent a full bike using Paisley, and have done for most bikes I’ve sold over the past few years. Service seems good, the website is easy to navigate and it’s not especially costly.

The last one was a bloody big eBike box too.

Posted 5 months ago

I sent 2 frames recently both directly through Parcelforce – rather than my usual Parcel2Go as it worked out a little cheaper.  Both were over 1m in length.

It’s the insurance that really bumps the price up though – one frame was insured for £400 and it cost just over £27, the other was insured for £850 and it was almost £65 to post. Collection service for both.

Posted 5 months ago

It used to be that parcel force sold it’s own services at a discount through senditnow. Don’t know if that is still true. Equally parcelmonkey and parceltogo.

Posted 5 months ago

Cheaper if you drop off at parcelforce depot.

Posted 5 months ago

If it’s a suspension frame then remove the shock and move rear to compressed position. Put plenty of padding between front and rear and use zip ties or string to hold it in the short position. That can often be enough to get under the magic parcel force number.

Posted 5 months ago

A lad I know recently sold a hardtail and reluctantly used Hermes (his ad stated it was collection only but the buyer convinced him to post it) and it was delivered with a fair bit of (mostly cosmetic) damage that wasn’t there when he boxed it up. I’ve used parcelforce in the past without issue and as said already its cheaper if you drop it off at the depot

Posted 5 months ago

paisley freight. 30kg limit for around £28..

Posted 5 months ago

Thanks all. It did fit within parcel force in the end so I’ve gone with that. Wierdly eBay have the max length at 109cm so I couldn’t do it through eBay and had to go direct to parcel force.

Posted 5 months ago

I’ve used Paisley many times without any issues – they seem the cheapest

Posted 5 months ago