One of your first considerations must be what happens if the recipient is not at home to receive the goods when the carrier arrives. Many carriers have  different ways of handling this situation. If your goods are of high value you do  not want them left on the doorstep. If they are perishable, the doorstep is not  ideal either, but you do not want the customer to have to get the carrier to  come out again - by which time their delicious food parcel may no longer be  edible!

Therefore you must investigate different carriers carefully, and you must also indicate in your home shopping catalogue what will happen if they are not at  home to receive the goods when they arrive. Perhaps you will need to warn  your customers to make sure someone is in on the expected day of delivery.  You will be familiar with various carriers delivering occasional parcels to your  own door, but your experience of using carriers may be limited to visiting your  local Post Office and using Royal Mail and no more! You may even have used  ParcelForce to send your annual Christmas gift to your brother in Australia. But  now you may need to look at these other long distance carriers for your  business and you realise there is a lot to learn out there - are your goods time-  sensitive like food - and do you need to consider customs too - a veritable  minefield!

For example you may be trying to send parcels to Ireland. How do they classify Northern Ireland / Eire? Often Ireland suddenly becomes "Europe" with some  carriers and associated costs!

Not only do many carriers give you a signature service with traceability but they can provide you with their software on your own computer to produce  those rather (but necessary it seems) garish labels with bar codes - which  works alongside TOPS © software - reducing one of those nasty bottlenecks  that can easily build up when the airway bills / dockets / labels have to be  prepared by hand. This makes working with the long distance carriers very  easy.

For some long distance carriers you may even have to provide special invoices for processing your goods through customs - once again with TOPS ©  interfacing with these long distance carriers' software, this is another odious  chore that is automatically processed - what a relief!

You may not realise that many of these carriers are franchised in your area and you need to discuss with them what annual throughput you envisage and  ask for their best prices. Apart from their average delivery time - you may not  need a next day service if your goods are not perishable.

It is essential to understand how your chosen carrier handles damaged or missing parcels. For instance supposing they damage your £80 product how  will that affect you if they are only prepared to refund the £11 delivery cost? -  this could bring down your whole business if your product is fragile and highly  expensive.

For many lightweight articles good old Royal Mail still offers a very reliable service. Although you have no proof of delivery through their ordinary first  class post, in my experience the number of parcels lost has been so low -  something less than 0.05% for our smoked salmon business that it proved  very cost effective. Once your goods get past the kilo weight then a carrier  might provide better value for money. At Christmas time Royal Mail seem more  reliable since they deliver to their customers daily (and the Postie knows where  to leave a parcel if you are out) whereas a carrier might be delivering to an  address that is totally unfamiliar and will take the parcel back to base if you  are out and no alternative location has been offered. Remember to provide a  telephone number if using carriers - then they have no excuse. With improved  mobile phone technology (such as satellite phones) there should be no excuse  due to "lack of a signal" either now!

Royal Mail have introduced 'Pricing In Proportion' - based on wieght, lenght, breadth and depth. There are three formats: letter, large letter, and packet. It is the depth of the package that in most cases is going to be the most critical aspect.

Royal Mail do have software for calculating prices, determining the best carriage method, and automating Special Delivery (signed for and timed).

Here is a list of the websites of some well-known carrier companies: