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.
