UK firms team to launch tracked cross-border ecommerce delivery

Online retailers in the UK are now being offered a new shipping service for low value goods going to consumer buyers overseas – which includes full tracking capabilities. The service, dubbed Trak Pak, has been launched as a partnership between parcel shipping company P2P Mailing Ltd and the parcel shipping management platform Global Freight Solutions (GFS).

It seeks to give ecommerce merchants an alternative option to paying for premium express parcels services when they need full visibility on shipments going to foreign customers.

Neil Cotty, the GFS managing director, said the growth of ecommerce had increased the choice of products available and the geographical range of retailers from which consumers can buy.

But he said research suggested that consumers were often dissuaded from buying from overseas retailers because of the cost of premium express delivery, or the inability to track a purchase once despatched via a standard service.

“What Trak Pak represents is a combination of P2P’s expertise in providing international mail delivery solutions and GFS’s speciality in providing a multi-carrier management platform to deliver a fully integrated and tracked service,” he said.

“Balance”

The new service provides an “optimum balance” between the best commercial rates and quality of service for retailers and their customers, Cotty said.

West Sussex-based GFS was established in 2001, and says its ecommerce and other customers shipped more than 6m parcels last year. Essex-based P2P Mailing currently handles more than 5m packets and parcels for ecommerce brands in fashion, leisure and consumer electronics.

P2P managing director Paul Galpin said the new Trak Pak service is being run with network partners with priority mail schedules, for parcels up to 5kg in weight going to Europe, North America, Australasia and the Far East.

“What we are able to offer is lower costs to the retailer and increased convenience and security of delivery for consumers, something which is at the heart of what e-commerce is all about,” said Galpin.

“Together we will be able to inject items into domestic mail markets across the globe and track them in a way which no-one else is currently able to do.”

The European Commission is currently examining the state of cross-border ecommerce delivery, having suggested that the current costs of shipping parcels across national borders within the EU is too high.