Boxby - Packaging Hints and Tips

DPD wins Awards of Excellence

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:26:00 +0000

DPD win best use of Technology Award

A Reading company has bagged a top award for its innovative parcel delivery service.Leading parcel carrier DPD, based in Commercial Road, picked up the prestigious accolade at the e-Commerce Awards for Excellence.DPD was applauded for its innovative use of technology and its strong customer focus which includes a ‘deliver to neighbour’ service.

“The home delivery market is of huge importance and it is a great accolade that we are recognised as leading the way for the parcels sectors,” says DPD boss Dwain McDonald.

Here at Boxby, we already know that DPD make the best use of technology to improve the reliability and speed of parcel delivery. "DPD and Interlink have reliability levels of over 97%" says Boxby Director Alistair Patterson, "and this was one of the reasons that we chose to work with ParcelsPlease. We've worked with DHL parcel resellers in the past and it was nothing but a headache. Now that our customers are booking parcels with DPD and Interlink, we see a far lower rate of missed collections and deliveries. And this makes our job far easier. We only want to be recommending good reliable parcel carriers to our customers. We are very pleased for DPD".

Britains biggest selling Internet Magazine says Boxby's Best!

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:12:00 +0000

Webuser gives Boxby 5 Stars!

We are pleased to have received Webuser magazines Five Star rating and website of the fortnight. Watch next months edition for an exclusive webuser discount code for your Christmas Parcel bookings.

Royal Mail Strikes nearing end?

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:20:00 +0000

End to Post Strike?

There may be an end to the Deadlock in the UK Mail Strike, with supposedly a draft deal on the table. Although both parties refuse to comment publically, there are further meetings planned for today.

Deutsche Post avert Mail Strike in Germany

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:12:00 +0000

Wage Deal with German Unions averts German Mail Strike

The Royal Mail isn't alone in facing the issues of cost cutting and modernisation, along with pressures from the mail workers unions for a pay increase, over in Germany Deutsche Post, owners of DHL, is experiencing exactly the same problems.

Deutsche Post and Verdi (the German mail workers union) agreed to extend the existing wage contract to the end of 2011, while also settling for further outsourcing of parcel-delivery services, Verdi said. Letter carriers will also forego overtime pay until June 2011. In return, workers will get a 3 percent wage increase in December without having to work longer hours as well as a one-off payment of 320 euros in 2011. The new agreement prevents Deutsche Post from cutting jobs before the end of 2011. The deal will lead to cost savings of about 140 million euros ($207.5 million) next year and 230 million euros in 2011, Deutsche Post said. Juergen Gerdes, head of Deutsche Post's Mail unit, had told Reuters in August that profits at the division, which generates more than half the group's operating profit, could "melt like snow in the sunshine" without immediate efforts to cut costs.

Interestingly the German deal secures jobs, and this is one of the issues most at the forefront of the CWUs concerns. The Royal Mail's plans to close the smaller local mail depots and move to new Superhubs is one that the CWU see as a back door way of cutting jobs. Most of the new Superhubs are about bring the mail sorting out from small old city centre located sites, to new purpose built sites located much more strategically - ie closer to the main road and rail networks, places where motorways meet etc.

CWU and Royal mail continue discussions, but still seem far from reaching an agreement. Here at Boxby we hope that maybe the Deutsche Post settlement will give both parties a middle ground to aim for.

Cheaper to Deliver it myself????

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:06:00 +0000

Is it really cheaper to deliver it myself?

Here at boxby we sometimes hear from customers these words. When customers have requested deliveries from one corner of the UK to the other corner, for a next day or same day delivery job.

Here at boxby we bring customers very good courier and delivery prices, but these prices are based on flexibility, when a customer has very precise requirements for collection and delivery times, our opportunity to find a courier that has already got work scheduled in on a similar route falls fast, and the customers requirement move towards those where they need a same day dedicated courier.

Prices for same day couriers tend to vary from around £1 up to £1.80 or £2 a mile. Just the other night, I had a customer on the phone at 10pm, asking if I could get him a courier to deliver a document from Edinburgh to London before 9am the following day. That following day being a Saturday! I said that I could, no problem, but he should be anticpating a minimum of £1 a mile, probably quite a lot more bearing in mind he would be calling someone out to work at 10pm on a Friday night. To which I got the prompt response "it'd be cheaper to do it myself".

Well, the Daily Mail today shows just what the cost could be doing it yourself. The UK's first £1000+ train ticket!! Makes £400 for a dedicated courier seem cheap by comparison.

Home Delivery Network (HNDL) Expanding rapidly

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Home Delivery Nework (HNDL) expanding into Ireland and overseas.

The Home delivery network has signed an agreement with TNT which will enable Home Delivery Netwek customers to send parcels to over 200 international countries.

Brian Gaunt, chief executive of HDN, said: “This new partnership agreement with TNT will vastly improve the breadth of service that we can offer our retail clients, as well as bringing fantastic benefits to consumers who will now be able to order products online and have them delivered to their homes wherever they may be in the world.

“We chose TNT Post Parcel Service because we have an existing partnership with them in the UK and have been impressed with their quality of service which matches our own focus on customer satisfaction

Until last year, the Home Delivery Network was a business that concentrated on large volume customers, if you were sending less than 200 parcels a week it wasn't really interested in quoting to you. However the HDNL has obviosly had its eyes set on the HDNL has recently launced it's collect + parcel service onto the UK market, where customers can obtain parcel services via local paypoint stores. The addition of the TNT international services will offer wider choice to customers, and will definitely raise HDNL profile in the parcel and express delivery industry.

Head of the Royal Mail paid 5 times the salary of the Prime Minister!

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:12:00 +0000

Is the Head of the Royal Mail really worth the money?

As we all sit here in Postal chaos, with the backlog of mail, letters and parcels from the previous week's strikes still dribbling through, and us all with our fingers crossed that they get delivered before this weeks strikes on Friday and Monday, the Head of the Royal Mail, the man imposing pay cuts on hard working posties, takes home a salary equivalent to 5 times that of the Prime Minister.

Is the burden of running the Royal Mail really 5 times harder than running the country? The old adage that salary is a reward for risk and exposure seems to apply little here, with Adam Crozier accountable to seemingly no-body, whilst the PM is accountable to all. The PM job is undoubtably a 24 hour a day job, I don't think that Mr Crozier is out in the sorting depots at 5am.

Boxby think that maybe the Royal Mail could fund their modernisation program without cuts to employees pay and conditions if Mr Crozier took a bit of a pay cut himself. Unless of course, he really does believe that he is 5 times more important then the Prime Minister.

Postal Strike Survival Guide

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:48:00 +0000

A few quick tips on how to best send letters and parcels during a mail strike

Use online banking to process any important payments, particularly those with payment dates (eg credit cards etc). If you are a business, grab this opportunity to get your suppliers onto direct bank payment, it will save you time and money in the long term, and your suppliers will appreciate the steps that you are taking to ensure that the old "cheque in post" excuse isn't used.
Go through your correspondence for the next few weeks, and ensure that everything is dealt with promptly and in advance. Use email and telephone calls, and online suport systems rather than mail correspondence.
Don't send any important mail in the two working days proceeding the mail strike. During these days the system will be coping with 2-3 times the normal volume of mail. Chances of losses and delays are higher, and it will take a week to find out whether or not it is actually going to get delivered.
The same applies to the 2 working days after a mail strike. Avoid sending.
Don't post things in mail boxes whilst there is a strike. It's not going anywhere and again chances of loss and damage are higher.
Don't deliver things to post offices and expect them to hold for the duration of the strike. Most post offices have only limited space for mail storage (if any) and aren't equiped to deal with the storage of your mail. Keep it in your office, safe.
If it is essential to use the mail during the 2 days before or after a mail strike, then make sure that you use Special Delivery. This is the Royal Mail's only guaranteed mail delivery product.
There are lots of online parcel booking services that can be used for a few pounds more than the Royal Mail. If it's important, or you can't afford for it to be delayed or lost, then this is your best option for mail strike days. Here at boxby we recommend ParcelsPlease for next day delivery.

Ebay Sellers no longer responsible for Postal Strike delays.

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Ebay suspend changes to DSR's to help sellers survive postal strike - but are they really just hurting buyers?

In September this year, Ebay changed the seller Distance Selling Ratings to assess sellers on the speed of despatch and delivery. Furthermore the changes made the seller responsible for delivery, responsible for the product up to the point of delivery to the customer. Put simply, posting the item is no longer sufficient, it is sellers responsibility to ensure that the postie, or the parcel carrier deliver.

These changes put ebay sellers on the same level footing as other e-commerce traders, and ensure that ebay sellers comply with the same Distance Selling Regulations that anyone selling off any other website would have too.

Unfortunately for ebay, these changes appear to have co-incided with a Nationwide postal strike, which risks a huge backlash from sellers who feel that they are being unfair negatively assessed becasuse of the Royal Mail's failure to ensure that they posties are out delivering and that the Royal Mail is providing the delivery service it should.

Ebay have therefore decided to suspend the "Speed of Despatch" DSR for the duration of the postal strike.

Does this help customers? Well, here at boxby we would suggest no, no really. Because the Royal Mail isn't the only delivery company out there, and that many sellers have already made proper and appropriate arrangements to ensure that their customers get their products come what may through the postal strike. Sellers that have gone this extra step will now no longer receive any accreditation, and can't be distinguished from the lazier ebay sellers who simply despatch their items with the Royal Mail, during a postal strike, and put the needs of their customers low down the list.

This is the whole point of the Distance Selling Regualtions, and ebay's move towards compliance for sellers through the Distance Selling Ratings. Other ecommerce websites don't have the chance to "opt-out" of relevant consumer legislation just because the posties go on strike. So why should ebay sellers? Consumer legistltion isn't voluntary. The most useful and relevant thing that ebay could be doing during times of a postal strike is by letting customers draw attention through feedback to those higher quality ebay sellers that do take steps to ensure that their customers still receive their products promptly.

Happy Birthday DHL

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:14:00 +0000

DHL celebrate 40 years of Express Delivery

It could have been Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn that celebrates its 40th anniversary tomorrow – the 25th September 2009, but in the end, they decided on a shorter, snappier name; DHL. Started up with Student Loans, the three of them collected time sensitive documents in suitcases, the rushed to the airports to book flights on credit cards. It has since then grown to be one of the worlds most recognised brands, and a global force in express logistics, covering a network of 220 countries.

At the core of these innovative developments, is the company's unfailing focus to effectively use the most modern technology to address its customers' needs. Said Frank Appel: "Very early on, we recognized that the company's success lies not only in listening to what our customers want, but, more importantly, acting on it quickly and effectively. Very often we anticipated what our customers want and addressed these even before they ask."

DHL looks set to contine to providing logistics and delivery services well into the future.

Implications of the Postal Strikes for Ebay Sellers

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:38:00 +0000

Ebay Sellers need to beware, Postal Strike delays could impact your DSRs

All ebay sellers should be aware of one of the new changes brought in as part of the 22nd September changes. As sellers you are now responsible for the item all the up to the point of delivery. This means that if your item gets damaged in transit, goes missing in the post, or sits in a sorting office for a couple of weeks, that you as the seller will be rated on this as part of your P&P DSR.

It is no longer enough to simply produce a proof of posting, you need proof of delivery. This means online trackable services, and for the short term, and particularly in the run up to Christmas when customers expected their orders despatched quickly, that ebay sellers make contingency plans for couriers and alternative delivery methods other than the Royal Mail.

Our Parcel partner; Parcels Please does not use and Parcelforce or Royal Mail services, and therefore parcel deliveries booked online will not be subject to any delays caused by the Royal Mail workers strikes. To book parcels with Parcels Please click here.

Government has Couriers on Standby to replace Posties

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Postal Strike means goverment sending giros by courier

The Government has a whole heap of courier companies at the ready to send out Giros, Benefits and Pensions to local post offices should the Royal Mail workers carry through with their planned strike action next month.

Some of these parcels will have 1 or 2 single post office giros in them, and the costs of sending out parcels like this to individual post offices is a huge waste of public money. In the last strike in 2007 the government used TNT to distribute its mail and parcels, including benefit cheques & giros.

These contingency plans show us that the government doesn't look ready to step into the middle of the row between the posties and the Royal Mail management, and that they anticipate perhaps that not only is strike action inevitable, but also could be quite drawn out.

Here at Boxby, we urge our readers to follow suit and make contingency plans and alternative arrangements. For some people, Yes, parcel couriers may be more expensive than sending things by post, but you can't afford to leave your customers in the lurch, and pass responsibility for non delivery onto the Royal Mail. Be proactive now, and your customers will appreciate it.

Big Changes at Ebay make Deliveries even more Important

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:02:00 +0000

Ebay changes mean sellers need to think more about their deliveries.

Next week, on 22nd September, Ebay launches a whole host of changes that will dramatically impact on ebay sellers. Sellers are using the functions to draw attention to their listings using the bold, and highlight features, the featured options are also disappearing.

Additionally for sellers, the DSR's (Distance Selling Ratings) become crucial, because now, if your DSR's slip beneath 4.4 then your items will receive a lower priority listing on ebay. This impacts heavily on new and infrequent ebay sellers, because if one buyer gives you a neutral instead of a 5 star rating for postage and packaging, then that's you listings plummeted down to page 15, and invisible to buyers.

If you can't use bold or highlight to make your listings stand out from the crowd, how can you encourage bidders to click on your listing. We here at Boxby, we recommend strongly that you sort the delivery for your customers and you make it as easy as possible. For smaller items being sold this is very easy, because you simply use a good reliable parcel company, that offers online tracking. However, for the larger items quoting delivery costs is impossible, because couriers quote different prices for delivering to different parts of the UK, and you can be guaranteed that if you take a gamble and quote a £45 delivery that the person that wins your auction will be living in Ullapool, or somewhere else far off the beaten track, and the actually delivery cost may end up being double or treble the amount that your customer has paid.

Boxby has addressed this issue head on with an ebay delivery compatible application. It's simply a matter of copy and pasting a few lines into your ebay listing, and we'll then take all the stress and effort away from you. We'll get your bidders details and put them together with location details from your ebay listing, we'll automatically create a job quote and send it out to the couriers for your bidders. The bidders will get all of the delivery quotes emailed to them, so they can make a proper and accurate decision.

You will not be left with any risk of a shortfall between what you've taken for P&P and what the delivery actually costs, because your bidder will choses and pays the courier direct.

Boxby has recognised that ebay's policies are of critical importance to our customers, and you can rest assured that we will be continually revising and ammending boxby's products to ensure that ebay sellers and buyers can use boxby to their maximum advantage.

Send me an Email when the Postal Strike is Over!

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:57:00 +0000

The best quote that I have read concerning the impending Mail Strike came from Nigel Farndale, in the Saturday Telegraph; "I suspect the striking postal workers haven't realised how much times have changed. "What's that? You're going to strike until your demands are met? Well, if you must. Perhaps you could drop us an email to let us know when you've finished."

This quote although amusing, is also pretty accurate. The Royal Mail is one of the last dinosaurs of nationalisation, an oddity that couldn't work profitably in the current model in the private sector, is classed as an essential national service, and so despite everyone's reluctance, set to carry on as a loss making business, hounded for making losses because no-one will allow it to charge the prices or operate in a commercial business manner that would allow it to be profitable.

All over the world Postal Services are taking a hammering. The essential public service requirements mean that it is necessary for a customer to be able to send a letter from Penzance to the Orkneys on an overnight delivery. The commercial parcel companies put this on a 2-4 day delivery, recognising that the increased costs of covering this distance, of the air services needed to acheive an overnight delivery as opposed to the cheaper road services. The parcel companies spread these costs over a larger volume by giving a longer timeframe for delivery. And the Royal Mail has to offer this service for pennies, because that's what the government dictates.

The mail and parcel industry is a rapid changing one. Communication is becoming more immediate, faster delivery, shorter messages. Twitter has brought us a nation of people that communicate to thousands of people entire messages in one short sentence. Mobile phones, text and email are the normal methods of communicate used between friends and families. Banks, Utilities and businesses all want us to move over to electronic communications, letter free options, and even pay us an incentive to do so. Parcel companies are cheaper than the royal mail once you go over more than 5kg, they're also more convenient as they'lll pick up from you, meaning no dragging the Christmas parcels down to the Post office queues.

All in all it adds up for an agenda for change. But the trouble at the moment is that NO-ONE, Royal Mail management, government or Unions, have the foggiest idea how to change the Royal Mail.

Our suggestion is that instead of looking at modernisation back to front, looking at what they did, what they're doing. It should instead be blank piece of paper time, work out what the services and products of the Royal Mail will be for the future. What are business going to want from the Royal Mail in 10 years time? Will people still be bothering with Christmas cards in 10years time. Look forward instead of backwards. Modernisation can't be acheived when you're always looking behind you.

CWU to Vote on UK Wide Mail Strike

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:42:00 +0000

UK faces nationwide Strike

The Communication Workers Union have decided to vote on 17th September for a full out UK wide strike. If mailworkers vote for a strike then it could see the UK's mail systems completley grounded in October, just as businesses start to see the uprise in despatches in the run up to Christmas. Couple this with the fact that there are already backlogs in most of the UK's larger mail centres, potentially up to 20million undelivered items in London alone, and it presents a worrying situation for the UK's business owners.

The roots of the disagreement go back to the 2007 agreement between Unions and the Royal Mail Management regarding modernisation, and the recurring issue of mail workers finishing when their mail routes are complete and leaving early as opposed to staying and assisting with other duties for all of the hours that they are paid. (This was a concession given the the mail workers in exchange for extensive changes to pension arrangements).

The Royal Mail is under pressure from the government to increase operating profits, and also commercially due to falling mail volumes due to the increase in digitial mail services. However, here at Boxby we believe that the biggest two threats to the Royal Mail are it's management, and its workers. Every additional mail strike leads customers to search for alternatives, and those alternatives usually offer either a cheaper or more convenient service once set up, and therefore customers simply don't return to the Royal Mail after the strike.

With online parcel booking websites offering single parcel bookings cheaper than the Royal Mail's own parcel services, what incentive is there for small businesses and private individuals to return to the Post Office queues, and uncertainty of deliveries.

Fedex Van stolen in Swansea

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:16:00 +0000

A Fedex van was stolen in Swansea last week whilst a driver made a delivery. Thieves took the van containing more than 20 parcels, and abandoned it about 20 minutes later not far away. The majority of the parcels had been stolen.

New Parcel Website launches with a bang.

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:37:00 +0000

CCL's new website ParcelsPlease makes an impact in the parcel market

This weekend saw the launch of the new online parcel delivery website from CCL. CCL already offers a complete parcel booking service, as well as offering Freight, Pallet and other logistics services.

The New ParcelsPlease website is dedicated strictly to parcels, making online booking quicker and simplier. And it launched at the weekend with one of the strongest prices for Parcels to Europe, with a 30kg Parcel to France, Germany, Netherlands or Belgium for just £11.50 including VAT.

Said Sandra Patterson from Boxby "it's great to be working with a company that can bring such terrific value into the Parcel Delivery market, and what's even better is that the CCL/ParcelsPlease set up has such a good customer service team that are always so good at sorting bookings for all those large and unusual deliveries.

"That European Parcel price is simply amazing. It's the kind of price that makes it possible for UK e-tailers and retailers to sell into Europe as easily and cheaply as selling to the UK. 30kg is a huge parcel, and an £11.50 delivery price with the VAT included is simply industry best".

"We've dealt in the past with parcel resellers that simply put you in a telephone call and then after minutes of hanging on refer you back to the website. That's not helpful, and it's not why the customer is phoning up in the first place. With CCL and Parcels Please, I can be confident every time a customer goes off to book a parcel that they'll get all the support that they need".

FSB Calls for Expansion of Post Office to help Small Businesses

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:07:00 +0000

Sarah Sharpe of Hellmail writes today that the Communication Workers Union lent its support today to proposals by the Federation of Small Businesses to improve the long term future of the Post Office® network. The CWU, which represents staff in Crown Post Offices and the whole of Royal Mail Group, is keen to see an expansion of services provided by post offices.

Andy Furey, CWU national official, said: “We welcome the FSB’s proposal to develop post offices into small business hubs as it builds on the many strengths that the network has to offer. We have long campaigned for the Post Office to be a one stop shop for government services and believe that the skill and experience of Post Office staff could easily adapt to this exciting role.

“We also believe that greater banking capabilities – preferably through the establishment of a Post Bank – are essential to the future viability of the network. “We hope that politicians and business leaders will endorse new business streams for the Post Office and take serious steps to ensure a sustainable future for the network and its staff providing a high level of customer service in all communities.”

The FSB said: "Small businesses are currently not getting the services that they need from the Post Office®. The future Post Office® should look and function very differently from the current model. It should be made into a flexible business hub, able to stand on its own feet and service the small business community, which constitutes the backbone of the British economy.

Here a Boxby, we believe that the Post Office provides an essetial service to small businesses, and the Royal Mails services for items under 2kg are the most competitively priced products that small businesses can access because not sending out the massive volumes of mail that make them attractive customers to the likes of TNT Mail.

However the biggest problem that the Post Office has is that of marketing it's own products. Many small business owners despair at the idea of using the Royal Mail because they instantly think of sending a member of staff to stand in queues at the post office for half an afternoon. Many small business owners are completley unaware of the portal purely dedicated to mail solutions for small and medium sized businesses, probably because it's not marketed in the post offices, and it's buried deep in the Royal Mails own website. For example, only a few hundred pounds a year the Royal Mail will collect your mail from your offices.

One of the easiest steps that the Royal Mail and Post Office could do is to make the counter staff aware of the Small Business products and services, produce some effective marketing leaflets, and instead of trying to sell business customers Telephone services or Life Insurance, that the staff actually promote the mail services that are useful to the small business customers who make up an essential core of the their business.

Sustained Strikes by Royal Mail impact the whole UK

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:21:00 +0000

Postal Strikes continue to disrupt the UK

The CWU are continuing a sustained program of strick action that is impacting on most of the UK. As opposed to the big headline grabbing "one out, all out" strikes used in previous times, this time the CWU are targetting London, and local delivery offices, and the result of this is limited collections or deliveries to individiual postcode regions.

For businesses and consumers this can have a greater impact. At least when there is a nationwide strike everyone knows, all mail is delayed for a couple of days. However, when it's at a local postcode area, businesses and their customers may be completely unaware of it. Businesses may be sending out mail to customers completely unaware that they live in a postcode area that is subject to limited deliveries. People may even be sending mail in an area where there are limited collections, and again there is little to no public warning that mail collections are restricted.

All of this compounds to make using the mail a very hit or miss service, down to the postcode that you are sending to or from. And uncertainty is never good for any business, the Royal Mails, or its customers.

The CWU are striking to bring the Royal Mail management to the table for discussions on workloads and modernisation. Talks are due to start next week.

GM to sell new cars through ebay

admin.nospam@nospam.boxby.co.uk (admin@boxby.co.uk) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:39:00 +0000

Scott Morrison, Dow Jones, reports that the Mighty Ebay is working together with the US company General Motors in a proposal to sell new GM Cars on ebay, direct through GM. The local dealerships would be reponsible for delivering cars soldoff ebay and would still earn revenue from the online sales, GM is careful to state that the new scheme will work with dealers rather than against.

However, ebay seems to have been caught on the hop by this announcement, and is careful to state that although discussions are in progress, nothing is yet completely agreed or finalised. GM cars are already sold on ebay via the dealer network, and also GM sells its approved used cars on ebay.

Perhaps ebay are in dicussions with other car manufacturers?

How will this work for the customer, well any seasoned ebay seller will obviously be interested to see if ebay will try to enforce that all payments need to be made via paypal :) but that aside, GM suggests that cars will be for sale via auction as well as buy in now, so there could be the opportunity there for some good bargains. New cars is also on of the categories that isn't the busiest on ebay, and the proposals will increase quite dramatically the number of new cars available on ebay.

According to GM, the scheme will be piloted in California, according to ebay, we'll have to wait and see.