I'm nearing the completion of the online shop and I'm trying to find the ideal solution for the shipping and payment.
If you have an online store what are your recommendations, courier or post?
Is cash on delivery used in Switzerland? or only card/paypal/etc payment
In my home country I used FedEx. There will also be deliveries in Europe.
The standard for most things is using Swiss Post and accepting card payments.
It’s just so much better than all the other cowboys.
For International, can’t you give your customers a choice of who they want used?
Regarding COD, the post used to do this but I’m not certain if they still do. Twint, Credit Card, or bank transfer, should be sufficient.
And Chuff, they are doing their research. They are asking customers what they prefer.
Swiss Post did still do CoD, but that might have changed recently, not sure. We did that a little while ago, but we had notification of one a few days ago that had import costs on it and that could only be paid by using e-finance, TWINT or credit card. So might be a change at their end or possibly because I finally set up an e-finance account.
If your turnover is high enough then paying by invoice is popular here,
There are firms that handle the credit control, cash collection and risk for you for circa 2% but they usually have minimum monthly turnover requirements.
Do a search for "Invoice Factoring".
As others have said, use Swiss Post.
As an example sent out something yesterday. UPS wanted 90 CHF. Swiss Post 27 CHF (with a quicker service).
But, it all depends - volumes, weights, value of goods, documentation requirements etc etc etc.
Swiss Post don't collect so that may be a pain.
Again, it depends.
I consider myself a moderate online shopper, and had some experience with couriers (e.g. DPD). Some of them woth together with Swiss Post; in my experience, the more is handled directly by Swiss Post the better.
I’d say the same for any courier service v postal. When we were in the States a few years ago we wanted to post some packages of clothing, etc, back. Didn’t need them in a hurry, but we asked at a couple of the courier services and USPS; couriers wanted to charge $100 more just for them to take it down to the local post office and send it on. Needless to say we just went straight to the post office with them ourselves.
The business one also seems to be only for returns too.
If you know otherwise, can you post the link? Thanks!
2Kg parcel to the U.K. with Swiss Post (via your post office): 34 CHF.
2Kg parcel to the U.K. with DHL via a broker including pick up at home: 33 CHF.
DHL can go beyond the size limits of Post.ch (for a price).
https://www.post.ch/en/locations/home-delivery-service
It’s usually in areas without a nearby post office.
They also pick up domestic parcels from private customers for a 4.50 chf fee (more if you live on an upper floor) but you have to have printed off the label at home and be registered with the post as a private customer.