Shipping Charges Information

Highlands & Islands, Northern Ireland, IOW

In the past we have received customers comments in relation to higher delivery charges to Scottish Highlands & Islands, Northern Ireland and IOW (Zone 3 areas). The following information will help customers understand in a little more detail how we arrive at our shipping charges.

We use two companies for our outbound shipping traffic, Royal Mail (RM) and the courier company APC. Parcels are collected from our warehouse on a daily basis from Monday to Friday on normal working days. We do not despatch orders on Saturday, Sunday or Bank Holidays.

Our Royal Mail contract allows us to send a single parcel to any UK destination for the same price. With RM we can only send one parcel and there are weight and physical size restrictions relating to each consignment. If the consignment cannot be sent by RM (caused by size, weight or quantity parameters with the stock order) we send the consignment using APC courier.

Our cost prices with APC courier vary significantly, depending upon the delivery location and the make up of the consignment (size, weight and quantity of items).

If you are a customer living in a Zone 3 area and we have to send your consignment by APC courier (instead of RM) you will pay higher delivery charges, compared to normal mainland UK delivery courier charges. We do not impose higher delivery charges by choice, the charges reflect the costs charged to us by the courier company.

Courier companies (not us) decide which UK post codes fall into the Zone 3 charging area.

For customers living in Zone 3 areas, one possible option to consider, (to pay lower shipping charges) is to break your order down into two separate orders, this may allow us to send your order in two separate RM despatches. This RM work around to Zone 3 areas will not work if you are ordering items such as banquet rolls or table protectors over 90cm wide that require tube despatch. Any physical product item over 90cm in width (such as roll stock) is automatically sent by courier.

We hope the above explanation explains our shipping policy, specifically to customers living in Zones 3 areas. All courier companies, including Parcel Force (except Royal Mail) operate zonal charging. We have partnered with APC for various reasons, as we believe they offer the best overall commercial package to suit the needs of our business.