A message from our CEO, Lee Bucktrout…

Having worked in the mailing and fulfilment industry for near on 30 years, I have been fortunate to gain a wealth of experience during this time.  Early on in my career, I developed a passion for the mailing industry and this buzz fuelled my desire to start my own business. Taking the plunge in 2000, UK Postings was born with a team of two, fulfilling and distributing magazines and direct mail all over the world.

Ten years on in 2010, Mail Right International was established in New Jersey, USA. With over 30% of our international mail traffic heading for the US, it made perfect sense! Having a local presence in the US allowed us to work directly with the United States Postal Service (USPS), creating an invaluable relationship but also access to local rates and direct injection services.  This was the start of our export journey.

Bringing these two successful companies together in 2014 under the banner of UKP Worldwide (UKPW), giving our international brand one name. That same year we also took our USPS partnership to the next level by becoming a Global Direct Entry (GDE) Wholesaler and launching our US eCommerce shipping and return services.

Continuing to grow our brand, develop UKPW and its staff in being the industry specialists we pride ourselves in being, we took the early opportunity of diversifying our service offering to become an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) in 2016, before BREXIT was even a thing!   Being AEO continued to build on our reputation of being compliance specialists as well as providing additional benefits to our customers, such as total supply chain security and robust customs procedures.

Having worked in the mailing industry for near on 30 years, nothing makes me prouder than reflecting on the journey UKPW has taken and the colleagues that have helped us make it all possible. Our most recent success and string to our bow was the opening of our third site next to London Heathrow in 2019, this site manages all of our customs clearance for returned goods, inbound mail and parcels.  Our new partnership with Whistl UK, means we can offer a seamless customs clearance for imports, transhipment of mail and parcels to the UK and on into Europe and beyond.

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to my colleagues, customers, suppliers and industry partners many of whom are now personal friends who have helped make UKPW a success.

I look forward to the day we can celebrate with more than six people, travel for social reasons, meet with friends and family from another household and party long into the night, depending on where you all live!

A piece from our Sales Director, Guy Cliffe…

When you’re posting a marketing campaign, or magazine overseas, it’s very easy to choose the cheapest supplier without thinking through the ramifications of your choice – particularly during these crazy COVID times. Some destinations worldwide are harder to reach than others, with delays to countries including popular destinations like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the US.

Remember there are different service options available depending on how quickly you might want to deliver your items. ‘Direct Entry’ means we might look at using the postal authority of the receiving country and post on a local service. So if you are posting something from the UK to the US, we could use a direct USPS service. But remember the US has different weight and dimension restrictions, so a UK size Letter may need to post as a Large Letter in the US, which could increase your anticipated costs. Similarly, all countries have different weight breaks and sizing bands, so the rules for posting on a Direct Entry service are different from posting on an International postal service. Alternatively, we could use Royal Mail, but this is likely to be more expensive and they still have to hand traffic over to be delivered locally in-country, so paying a premium for a Royal Mail service may not solve any potential delivery delays. And we can also post using another international postal authority and this might be cheaper, but take longer (certainly as long as Royal Mail, but possibly longer than a direct service). There are also a myriad of local country alternatives to the main postal provider (just like we have alternatives here in the UK like Whistl, Citipost, The Delivery Group, etc.). However whilst this may reduce prices, the service may take slightly longer to deliver, depending on the country – unlike the UK where the delivery time is comparable (and on occasion even quicker!)

There’s also the thorny issue of Priority/Non Priority/Standard/Economy; what do they all mean? Most countries don’t have a 1st and 2nd class postal delivery like exists in the UK, they just have a single post service. And whilst a UK 1st class service might take 1-2 working days to deliver domestically, a US 1st class service has a delivery expectation of 1-4 working days and for 2nd class that rises to 4-9 working days! So a UK 2nd class service will likely deliver quicker than a US 1st class service when comparing domestic services, so there is no like for like and it can add to the confusion when you’re managing a campaign that is delivering to multiple countries across multiple continents.

So there are many different options available and I have always found that being completely transparent about all the options means I can provide the best possible advice. There is no ‘one size fits all’ answer!

I’d be happy to discuss and provide the best advice for any future campaigns you might be considering posting and it’s never been more important to make sure you are using the most appropriate service to match your needs/requirements and get the best value for money.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/guycliffe/