At Parcel Monkey we always strive to offer our customers the most cost-effect parcel delivery services in the country. As such we are constantly looking to give our customers greater value for money, so it’s great that today we can announce that we are able to offer £75 of carriage guarantee cover for free on our range of Parcelforce courier services including Parcelforce 24, Parcelforce 48 and Parcelforce international – previously the cover was £20. After crunching the numbers we believe this will collectively help save our customers many thousands of pounds over 2012 and beyond, and for our more regular customers the savings should certainly add up.

The news that the Ministry of Defence has spent £700 to send a pair of boots to Northern Ireland is begger’s belief in the light of severe budget cuts across all Government departments. Apparently the serviceman ordered a pair of £45 boots from the MOD logistics centre in Bicester, Oxfordshire and it was deemed worthy to pay £714.18 for a private courier to deliver them to Northern Ireland.

If the Ministry of Defence would have used our courier service then we could have done that for them for just £18.24+vat with next day delivery – a massive £695.94 cheaper. Even if they wanted a same day delivery with collection at 11am today then it would have cost “only” £378.73 – it’d still be £335.45 cheaper.

Image © liftarn

Can you believe that about half a £500m are bought online and then returned to retailers rejected? News from Kelkoo suggests this may actually be the case as there’s a complete lack of standardisation in clothes sizes meaning that you may think you’re a size 12 in one store but you’re actually a size 10 in another. The result is that online shoppers waste on average £25 a year on wasted shipping costs returning these ill-fitting and unwanted items.

If you regularly buy clothes online then you may actually have a good idea of the actual size you need to buy from your favourite retailers to fit comfortably, but if you’re not then you might like to check out the campaign for clearer sizing? There’s no data there for ASOS so we’d love to hear from you guys as which retailers you have to return items to most often.

We like to push boundaries when it comes to making the sending of parcels easier. We may have big plans here for the coming months, but we just love the ingenuity of the Danish Post people who have created a method to get stamps when everywhere is shut and you’ve looked through every draw in the house with no luck.

The new sms for stamps option will deduct 8kr (about 94p plus the standard network fee) for a code that you’ll get in a return text which you then just write on your envelope where the stamp would have been. Furthermore, they’re launching a service where you can send a real postcard using your mobile phone.

The letters and parcels business has changed radically over the past few years, but the next few are poised to be the most exciting ever.