Safe, Secure Mailing and No Worries

Everybody is nervous about letting go of precious photos, we understand that. It doesn’t matter if it’s an ancient snap of granny (and probably the last one you have), an award winning slide or you companies collection of photos built up over many years, nobody feels comfortable committing precious memories to the mail. So what can be done?

Personal Delivery

We’re based in Brentwood, not far from the M25 J28, so if you’re nearby or are prepared to travel, you’re welcome to deliver in person. We aren’t far from Brentwood or Shenfield stations.

Safe Packaging

The first step to peace of mind is to package your material well. Bubble wrap is brilliant, you can use elastic bands or envelopes to create folder sized bundles. Wrap the bundles and place them in a decent padded envelope or box along with a note of your contact details or use our order form.

Secure Mailing

The biggest mail carrier is the obvious choice – Royal Mail. Over the years they’ve given us brilliant service and we haven’t lost anything in the post. They offer two services, Signed For and Special Delivery. Signed For is slightly cheaper and just enables you to know that your parcel has arrived and in due course see who signed for it. Special Delivery is more expensive but each parcel is tracked from handing in at your post office through to delivery here, along with a signature on receipt. We think Special Delivery’s premium is worth it for the added peace of mind, but don’t bother with the Saturday guaranteed extra fee, unless you’re in a tearing hurry.

Courier Services

Many clients have felt more comfortable using a courier service. This ranges from a motorbike dashing out from London clutching a handful of slides, taxis (London black cabs and mini-cabs) but most usually is one of the next day delivery companies such as Citylink, UPS, DX or Parcelforce.

You can use Parcelforce via your Post Office, indeed it may be the only option available to you at the counter if your box is too heavy for Signed For or Special Delivery. They offer 24 hour or 48 hour options, one tip is to ask if the Parcelforce man has been that day before you commit. It can be annoying to think your parcel will arrive within 24 hours when that days van has been already.

If your company has an arrangement with a courier firm you could piggy-back on that, most carriers negotiate much lower rates for contracted clients than you’ll get any other way. If that’s not an option there are gateways to these services such as Parcelmonkey. This gives you access to Citylink, DX, Parcelforce and others at very reasonable rates. It’s not unusual for it to cost less than half the Special Delivery cost making this very attractive.

Another significant advantage of using one of these courier services is that they will collect the package from you, saving the bother of struggling to the Post Office with a heavy box.

And Back

Normally we will send your photos along with your CD back by the same service you’ve used to get then across to us. Of course the return journey is less worrying, we will have a copy of your photos saved on our systems here and also for print orders “in the cloud” via the online album we create for you.