Sendle Review. AKA - I really want to like you, but...
Summary: byto253 shared their experience with Sendle, a courier service that recently expanded from Australia to Canada, offering competitive shipping rates for small businesses. They initially faced challenges with parcel pickups, although Sendle's customer support was helpful. However, after two years, service has improved, with additional courier partnerships and the option for package drop-offs. lotzofuniquegoodies highlighted the difficulty of finding accurate shipping costs and the challenge for sellers in planning logistics due to unpredictable sales locations and durations, acknowledging that listing hiatus can sometimes be necessary. Overall, the discussion focuses on the benefits and challenges of using Sendle for shipping, noting its competitive US shipping rates and improved reliability over time.
I saw a thread here about Sendle and checked it out. They provide courier services within Canada only and the business model is basically that they get high volume courier account rates which small guys and individuals can access. This is a nice niche since there is a big gap between what high volume shippers are charged and retail or near retail folks are charged.
They also have parcels picked up at your door, and cover about 80% of the postal codes in Canada. If you are in a location they serve and do not have a stallion or chitchat type service, or it is bit of a drive to those depots, pickup is a really nice option.
Sendle started in Australia and has expanded to Canada so it is not a new outfit, just new to Canada. I gave it a try with 2 shipments. When you book pickup, it can be anytime from 8 am to 6 pm so you need a decent place to leave parcels for pickup.
The Sendle courier partner is ICS, for Ottawa at least. Sendle does not tell you who the partner is but the label has the courier name and tracking number. Ebay supports the Sendle tracking number, but not ICS.
Shipment one was last week and had 2 packages. Scheduled for a Tuesday pick-up, no show. Auto rescheduled for Wednesday. I contacted Sendle at 3pm when still no show on Wednesday. They were finally picked up at 7 pm.
Shipment two, 2 packages again. Scheduled pick-up Tuesday this week. No show Tuesday, Wednesday and at Noon on Thursday I just drove to the ICS depot and dropped them off. This worked and the tracking showed up shortly afterwards. It ends up the ICS depot is about 250 meters from the Chitchat depot.
Delivery has been good so far, one to northern Quebec was delivered quickly, one to Vancouver is being delivered today. This week is to Toronto and Richmond, BC and I will post up on delivery speed there.
Because of the pickup problems I interacted with Sendle support a lot. Kudos there, the folks are accessible and real life. Without their intervention the first week pickup would not have happened when it did. Not so lucky this week. Best way to contact them is through chat. They do seem to try their best, better than most but when working with courier "partners" there is only so much they can do.
There is potential here for this service as some rates are very good. Ottawa to B.C. for an 8 kg, 51cm x 42cm x 22cm box is $23.45, which is outstanding.
I have no confidence in pick-ups from my place, so I will just use Sendle when a drop off at ICS works, and ICS being beside chitchats makes that more feasible.
When I signed up I got the promotion for 10 free shipments, which is very good since it includes large parcels as well. There were 1,000 promos available so I don't know if there are any left. I had mentioned this in the other thread.
I will not recommend against using Sendle, just to be careful and check where your drop-off depot is in case you have pick up issues. The pick up problem may just be local and you will be fine, but best to prepare.
byto253
OP1 year agoThis was from 2 years ago, so just an update.
Pickups from home got much better when I tried them again a few months after this post. You still need to put the parcel by your door for pickup, which is a pretty long window. The strength of the pickups though is that it is availabe in a number of communities that do not have a Chitchats or Stallion, etc.
New things:
- Working with more couriers than just ICS, as the website refers to Canpar.
- Instituted drop off services so you do not have to depend on a pick up.
Drop off map here: https://try.sendle.com/en-ca/drop-off-locations
- Now ship to the U.S. at pretty competitive rates. I have not used this service myself as I have CP and Chitchats.
The site is: https://www.sendle.com/
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@byto253
I think for many (at least the one's I have spoken to recently) the biggest hurdle/roadblock once they find an alternative method to ship they need a workable method to show accurate/associated shipping costs. Something that is reasonable vs a lottery. Most sellers do not know where their next sale is going to. Throw in not knowing how long this is going to last and then having to undo the monster they just spent a bunch of time creating. Listing hiatus becomes the only option!!! Even if eBay "recommends" otherwise.
Personally, I had 1 transation yesterday that is most like at the top of the CP black hole. Prior to that my last sale was on the 7th.
byto253
OP1 year agoFor sure. I have a good feel for chitchats for various sizes to it is win some lose some with flat rate shipping on .com, but it works out close enough for me.
For the US the standard free Sendle account has flat rates for 3 zones, which for smaller packages do not have a lot of difference. As things get more than 1lb or 3 lb the gap grows - the chart is below. Similar to other carriers, watch for light but bulky items as you can exceed size limits for categories.