This may be so if you live in a town and have an address which is easy to find. Allegedly the point of Hermes is that they use local people so should have a good knowledge of the area.
From a customer point of view and from someone who lives in a rural area Hermes and all other courier companies give me the biggest headache. If I have ordered something and then I see that it will be delivered by a courier company, my heart sinks. I have had parcels delivered to houses over a mile from my home. They swear blind they delivered them and left them in my porch - only problem with that is that they would need my house keys to leave anything in my porch! This is not an occsional thing for me or my neighbours, this happens on a weekly basis.
I had one recently where upon checking the tracking No. it was actually being sent back to the retailer for reasons best known to them!
So for me when I send anything I send via Royal Mail. They may not be perfect but I have a more confidence in them than any courier company/
As Hermes Couriers are self employed they are very much on their own at being able to find rural addresses. My husband did this job for a while and part of his area was rural. Believe me the help is just not out there, Google maps are useless, Council website maps equally useless. Royal Mail maps not too good either. If it weren’t for an excellent relationship with our local postie, many rural addresses were just totally unfindable.
well it might have been my message that you read but I am just loving My Hermes.
I live high up and in the winter getting to the post office is a real problem for me (and I have a sick husband to look after so I am limited as to when I can get out ).
Now, with My Hermes collecting parcels from my door, I am able to list larger items whereas before I couldn’t do that in the winter for fear that I wouldn’t be able to get to the post office.
Since I have been listing larger items in my shop, my sales have increased.
We have a lovely young man who collects and delivers the parcels and he knows to knock quietly in case my hubby is resting.
It has certainly changed my listings and sales.
I thought about it for a long time before giving them a try but so far I am very pleased with the service.
My son runs his own online business and I had long chats with him before I embarked on this new journey and he told me that if you go to parcels2go you can still use My Hermes but for a slightly lower price.
I haven’t looked into that yet. parcels2go is an agency like “go compare” and Trivago…
Last year I took in over 300 parcels for my neighbours from My Hermes because the young man told me that they are not allowed to leave parcels without a signature.
Obviously there will be people who have had bad experiences, but so far I am really happy that I changed to them…and they are cheaper, no petrol, no parking and no queuing.
I used to love My Hermes and sent hundreds of parcels with them without a hitch.
If there was a blip, it was due to the customer ignoring the rearrange delivery card rather than My Hermes.
However, a year ago I started to notice problems with London addresses.
It turned out that they franchise out in London to an even cheaper company called Fleet, and communication between the two seemed poor.
Parcels were being returned due to “unable to find address” or “no access” yet Royal Mail would have no such problem when they were resent.
After having to right off a ÂŁ30 parcel due to a catalogue of errors and refusal to accept responsibility for delivering to the wrong address I stopped using them completely.
Now, I would rather pay a little more and use Royal Mail as I find them more reliable.
However, I will say that I’ve never had a problem with a My Hermes delivery being made to me when I’ve bought online.
It may well have been your post and I am glad you are happy with them. I do know of some rural people in my area that also use them with few problems but these people live on a named road which should be easy to find. However, some of us live in houses with house names which may once have been part of a bigger estate or farm as is the case with me. I have even been told that my address doesn’t exist even though I have lived here 20 years.
I add the directions to my property [and so do my neighbours] as part of the address. Unfortunately, the administrators who generate the address labels at courier companies fail to include this vital information and, if they do add it to the address label, they fail to add it to the most important document, the driver’s delivery sheet. The tendancy is to use the first line of the address and the postcode and nothing more.
In the past eighteen months I have had four Hermes couriers and when I ask where they are based none of them are within five miles of where I live, so hardly local.
Probably my worst experience was with an auction site. I purchased and paid for an item and messaged them that sat nav would not find us, gave the directions only to get a full refund within five minutes with the comment that “it’s not worth the hassle”! Couldn’t wait to give him feedback!
I am sure that many people have good experiences with Hermes and other couriers but I am sad to say I am not one of them and that is the main reason why I use RM over Hermes and others to send my items to customers and I am happy to say that so far I have not experienced any problems. Knowing my luck, I probably will now! LOL
I suppose it is all luck of the draw…my son has had literally dozens of items go missing with Royal Mail and they have never been helpful with refunds…
So I suppose with each of us , it is swings and roundabouts…we just have to keep our fingers crossed each time.
For me, the overall advantage with Royal Mail over My Hermes and other couriers is that if the customer isn’t in Royal Mail will leave a card for the customer to either rearrange delivery or pick up from the local sorting office within two weeks.
If the parcel is not picked up it is then returned for free.
With My Hermes it’s three delivery attempts then returned to sender at the sender’s cost.
With TNT it’s just two attempts.
And I used to get jittery if I tracked a customer’s parcel only to se two failed delivery attempts.
So many customers seemed to “not receive the card” or “forget” to rearrange delivery.
I’ve had mixed results with My Hermes - my local guy just throws stuff over the garden wall, whereas my Dad gets a great, personal, door-to-door service, even though he’s the one in the hard-to-find rural house!
To those of you using My Hermes - is it really cheaper?
(Just for the parcel I mean, not them picking it up versus going to town etc.)
My parcels are generally under 1kg, £25-£50 value, and if you want insurance and/or “signed for” there doesn’t seem to be much to choose between any couriers and RM. Are you getting a discount because you send 100 parcels a day or something?
If I send an item with Royal Mail…eg a crocheted baby coat…at the post office I think it is £3.35…plus my time petrol and I have to pay for parking.
My Hermes (with collection from my door) is ÂŁ3.10 and that covers their insurance too.
The post office charges more as items get heavier…
My Hermes is up to 1 kg…before the price increase and even for a crocheted blanket it is still only £3.10…I save a minimum of 15p per item and don’t have to go out.
You have to print off a label with a bar code and part of the" print off" goes inside the package, so you have to remember not to seal it until you have enclosed that part of it.
They also give you the option of sending the customer details of delivery and you get online tracking as well.
I am useless with technical things and I found it very easy to use.
It also suits me because in the winter the roads where I live can be dangerous and in the past I have not listed larger items for fear that if they sold I would have to go out and drive in dangerous conditions. No worries any more.
I couldn’t agree with you more, you have my sympathy,having just moved back from a farmyard where I could never be found by anyone other than the royal mail, no matter how involved and precise my directions were, the one good thing about being back in the village is that the delivery people can usually find me.
I had to join in this one - AVOID HERMES LIKE THE PLAGUE!
I’ve not had any problems with their delivery people but one evening, Hermes sent me an email saying they wouldn’t deliver my item unless I pay more money as it was over the weight I had paid for. I was sure it wasn’t but paid as I didn’t want to delay getting the item to my customer.
I then found an item online which showed I had got the weight correct. I contacted Hermes with this proof but they wouldn’t refund the money they had overcharged me and didn’t respond to my emails about this.
And just to add - it wasnt a couple of grams they were saying my parcel was over but an additional 3kg. The item only weighed 4kg and I had paid for up to 5kg. They charged me for the extra 3kg my parcel didn’t actually weigh plus an admin fee. Never again!
I have just read your penultimate paragraph about signatures which I find astonishing!
When Hermes eventually find me, I have never been asked for a signature. In fact, maybe because we are fairly isolated, the last courier would ring my door bell and leave the parcel on the doorstep and just drive away. Also, on one occasion, I received an email telling me my parcel had been delivered, I checked my post box [it was a small item] but there was nothing there so I was in the middle of an email to the company I purchased from when the door bell rang [probably 20 minutes later] and then when I opened the door there was my parcel on the step. That is not good as anything could have happened between the “delivered” email and the actual time of delivery - so wrong!
If I am not in, there is a large laminated sign on my door telling couriers that if a signature is required to go to my neighbour. This never happens with Hermes because they have never asked for a signature.
It was only a few quid so not worth the hassle but I tell everyone not to use them now. I just don’t understand why they did it.
I told their delivery guy next time he came and he said it wasn’t the first time he’d heard that - and most tellingly said he wouldn’t use them despite working for them!
that is a very generous offer Matthew.
For me though I might only have a parcel every month or so and in the winter it is impossible for me to get to the post office,and I am also a carer for my sick husband so it makes it even more difficult to get out. Our nearest post box is a long steep downhill walk too so I have to rely on friends and family to take items to the post box.
They have taken away all our post offices here and now we have to go to a small counter in our local Spar and that is a one mile drive down steep roads…(impossible in icy conditions).
we have a super postman…I just wish we were able to give parcels to him.
