A winner has been drawn for our competition to win a Garmin Satellite Navigation kit.
Carol Ambler from the Despatch Department at Delivernet on the Snaygill Industrial Estate in Skipton being the lucky entrant, Carol was presented with the device by our Ron Roberts.

A new competition will now commence and we have decided to offer a Wii game console and sports package, Good Luck with that and thanks again to Carol for showing interest
in our competition

admin News at Euro-Tran, Parcel News, Skipton

A TRULY GLOBAL INDUSTRY The numbers are mind boggling, In addition to the major ‘global’ carriers a multitude of other networks move millions of packages each day. A huge level of resource is required to do this, state of the art technology, and seamless logistics. World leading brands exist within this industry – UPS – FEDEX – DHL – TNT…..all household names. As a small local company and networking within the APC group Euro-Tran Despatch is up against such powerhouses of the industry. All is not well within our industry, The constant endeavour of the globals to achieve ‘market share’ has led to major consolodation within the industry, and some excellent brands have, as such disappeared, swallowed up, in some cases by lesser companies. City Link are ‘reportedly’ just emerging from difficult times some time after their takeover of Target Express. Experiencing massive losses, and shedding enormous resource and staff along the way. DHL having pulled out of the US Overnight parcels market, Then go on to ‘allegedly’ pay HDN in excess of £200m to take its UK overnight business off its hands, This in order to enable DHL to ‘focus’ on its core international and priority business. Clearly all is not well.
Uk Mail, formally Business Post, now see’s postal mail accounting for some 45% of its business, Meanwhile Royal Mail, as a result of the opening up of the under £1 shipment (For so long a monopoly of the Royal Mail)and after repeated strikes over the Crozier cutbacks is a fraction of its former self.

What does the future hold for the Industry ? One thing is for sure, Consolidation will continue and fewer carriers will result in less choice. While all this goes on, our small depot in Skipton continues to ship on behalf of over 300 locally based businesses. We endeavour where possible to do so with an honesty, and a sense of humour not necessarily available with the big players. When you handle thousands of parcels a day, sometimes it goes wrong, nobodys perfect, But we believe when it does go wrong we are as pro-active as any carrier to make it right. But service levels remain second to none. Even in these difficult economic times our client base continues to grow and few clients are ‘Lost’ to the global players.

This is achieved through damned hard work, and over a hundred and twenty (The largest network in the Uk) APC depots assist us in our endeavours. We must however develop what we offer to our clients. With the advent of Online Booking, Pod retrieval, and the excellent service levels on offer we do find that we have less and less interaction with our clients. The traditional banter between our staff and clients enabled us to judge what we do right, and when we get it wrong so its important we maintain these lines of communication. A dynamic user friendly website is crucial to maintaning this , so please any feedback you have on the service we offer, or don’t, as the case may be is crucial. Let us have it. Also, If you have any news stories we can add to our Blog send them to me.? Do you have staff doing something exceptional ? Have you won an order from an unusual source – or vital to retaining /growing your workforce locally? Global the industry may be – LOCAL is our interest.

E-mail me personally with any ideas or subjects you would like to see on our blog – photos included. I cannot promise to post everything but will try to accomodate them where possible. I will look to add links to websites you may find interesting, informative or just plain funny.

Thanks for your time..

Dave Howson
MD Euro-Tran Despatch
dave@euro-tran.co.uk

admin APC Overnight, News at Euro-Tran, Skipton

We need some entrants for our free to enter Sat Nav competiton on the Euro-Tran Homepage… Come on guys its FREE to
enter, and this time the number of entrants has been poor… We had a great response to the Acer notebook competition but it would appear nobody wants a sat nav…! err WHY?

Come on enter – (The answer is GPO)

admin Competition Result, News at Euro-Tran, Parcel News, Skipton, Uncategorized, free to enter competition competition, courier, Euro-Tran, overnight parcels, Skipton, Yorkshire Dales

We are currently looking into introducing a local service aimed at providing a cost
effective, overnight service throughout the West/North Yorkshire areas. Perhaps
even including South Yorkshire. Would such a service benefit you ?

We would have a target of £3 up to 20 kilos, and look to provide the service over
the BD,LS,HX,HD,WF,HG,and possibly the YO/S postal codes. Such a service would
be more cost effective than using your own delivery vehicle. The service would of
course work within the current online booking procedures, and be trackable, POD’s
online, etc.

If you have any views on such a service, or can provide any feedback on other
services you feel we should offer, please let us know.

Dave Howson
Euro-Tran Despatch
dave@euro-tran.co.uk

admin APC Overnight, Local News, News at Euro-Tran, Parcel News, Skipton North Yorkshire Parcel Delivery, West Yorkshire Parcel Delivery, Yorkshire delivery service

Good Credit Control is at the heart of every succesful business. Many business’s fail, not due to the product, not through lack of flair, the ingenuity or the efforts of their Directors – THEY SIMPLY RUN OUT OF MONEY.

With this in mind, and fully aware of the average debtor day experience of the transport industry , Euro-Tran have taken the Onstop Procedure on board. “Having an excellent relationship with almost all of our customers is fine” explains Helen Thornborrow, Accounts manager at the company, “Its still a bit of a cat and mouse game though when it comes to collecting the money in, and in the present economic environment things look set to get worse” She say’s.

Onstop has been developed to handle data sharing in a very sensitive manner, Creating responsible online credit communities. “We value our relationship with the customers, The two partners of Euro-Tran have built the business up over twenty years on a very personal basis, and are always available to clients”Helen tells us,”With this approach we retain business far better than the larger Parcel Carriers, I have been here for eleven years, Many customers dealt with Euro-Tran even before I arrived, but the business still relies on cash, Without it I am out of a job” Helen says. “Onstop is a simple web based procedure that suits some scenarios, Its cost effective and takes a good deal of pressure off my position” she concludes.

Glen Bullivant FICM.(Pictured above) A Vice President of the Institute of Credit Management and the author of some excellent publications on the management of credit describes the onstop procedure as ‘part of todays credit control arsenal’

For more information -
The Onstop Procedure

admin Courier News, Local News, News at Euro-Tran, Skipton credit control, OnStop

The Euro-Tran Drivers did an excellent job in raising funds for the Breast Cancer ‘wearitpink’- Campaign. We don’t as yet know the final amount but we managed to raise in excess of a thousand pounds. We will post shortly the actual amount raised. Many thanks to the drivers, and to all those who contributed.

admin Charity, Courier News, Local News, Skipton

Blue Peter ‘Smile’ Appeal.

PRESS RELEASE

Skipton, UK, 22 October 2009

 Local courier Euro-Tran Despatch is helping the BBC TV children’s show Blue Peter’s Send a Smile Appeal in aid of Operation Smile, which helps to transform the lives of children with facial deformities.

 

Euro-Tran Despatch is offering a free nationwide drop off and next day delivery service for the campaign’s Send a Smile Appeal that raises money to provide reconstructive surgery to repair cleft lips and cleft palates.

This year, Blue Peter has set a challenge to children throughout the UK to turn unwanted T-shirts into colourful hospital gowns for Operation Smile patients. The goal is to make 20,000 gowns – each worth approx £3 – saving £60,000 which will pay for over 300 operations. The finished gowns will be dropped off at convenient collection points – including local APC Overnight depots, Currys, Currys Digital, PC World and Access Storage – for next day delivery to Operation Smile in London.

Thousands of children are born each year with a cleft lip or cleft palate, preventing them from eating, speaking or even smiling. In many parts of the world these children are hidden away, prevented from attending school and face an uncertain future. Operation Smile sends teams of volunteer medical professionals to provide free reconstructive surgery.

Since 1982, Operation Smile has provided free facial reconstructive surgery to more than 135,000 children. The operation can take just a 45 minute operation, costing as little as £150 to give a child a new start at life.

Quentin Abel, Chairman, APC Overnight said: “Everyone within the APC Overnight network is pleased to be involved in the Blue Peter Send a Smile Appeal. The free facial operations make a big difference to children, enabling them to partake in activities the rest of us take for granted. The Appeal requires partners who have a nationwide presence to act as collection points, and so we are delighted that our network of depots will provide the ideal solution.”

For more information see: http://www.operationsmile.org.uk/bluepeterappeal

DROP OFF ADDRESS:
Euro-Tran Despatch
Enterprise Way
Airedale Business Park
Skipton
North Yorkshire
BD232TZ

CONTACTS:
For more information, call David Howson on 07966 060781.

If local Schools want to Participate, Please call us at Euro-Tran and we will collect your ‘T’ shirts from the school and see they reach the SMILE centre in London.
Good Luck.

APC Overnight
APC Overnight is the UK’s largest next day delivery network with more than 125 local depots covering all areas of the country. The network specialises in timed deliveries, offering a choice of convenient morning or afternoon options as well as a Saturday service. APC Overnight collects, routes and delivers more than 1 million parcels each month with an impressive better-than-99.8% on-time delivery record.

The network is unique – not a franchise or faceless corporate, APC Overnight is owned and managed by independent local delivery specialists connected into a strong managed system. Originally created by a consortium of 47 UK same-day delivery companies in the early ’90s, APC Overnight’s has tripled the size of the network, while keeping the founding principles unchanged.

admin Courier News, Skipton Blue Peter Appeal, Euro-Tran

Euro-Tran continues throughout the year to support the Cancer Research Campaign.

However on Friday the 30th of October we will endeavour to support the ‘Wear it Pink’ day on behalf of the Breast Cancer Campaign.

Our drivers will be endeavouring to raise some funding on the day at customers and delivery locations. Our staff will be wearing very fetching ‘EURO-TRAN WEAR IT PINK’ baseball caps for the day – Tracy, Chris and Kazz are seen here modelling the office issue – and no, the guys won’t be wearing pink nail varnish to match (They much prefer RED !!!…) If you can help every penny will be gratefully accepted. The customer service team clearly look better in the caps than the Guys…But its all in a good cause .

If you can make a donation drop a cheque made out to the ‘BREAST CANCER CAMPAIGN’ to us here in Skipton,or
send it direct to:

BREAST CANCER CAMPAIGN
CLIFTON cENTRE
110 CLIFTON STREET
LONDON
EC2A4HT

REG CHARITY NO 299758

OR JUST STOP ONE OF OUR DRIVERS AND GIVE THE CHEQUE TO HIM!

 If you yourself want to do something on behalf of the campaign visit – wearitpink.co.uk

admin Courier News, Skipton Breast Cancer Campaign, Euro-Tran

For the latest on the strike click here.

 

 

admin Courier News, Skipton APC Overnight, Postal Strike, Royal Mail

Nobody as yet knows the extent of the threat to our postal services.

The first scheduled strikes begin next week.

As a carrier we want to see the dispute settled then we can all move on. We don’t want to see the Royal Mail Damaged further. We will certainly see an increase in small mailpacks and parcels but the extra revenue is no comfort to us. The Royal Mail is set up to deliver this type of freight, Its not as cost effective for us to do it.

All APC Depots are prepared for the strike and will endeavour to maintain service to the usual high standards but undoubtably there will be instances where we simply are overwhelmed with the freight. Please bear with us. It is extremely difficult to deal with short term spikes in business. I am sure overall service will be Good.

This country needs a strong Royal Mail too many sectors are now being bought by continental outfits. Our industry is being bought up the the French and German post offices – lets hope the Royal Mail does not go the same way – Come on Guys – sort it and get back to work.�
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We have arranged for a discount to be made available to our existing clients for mailpacks – Just call the Depot to have this discount implimented. Our depot is open for 12 hours a day should you have a need to drop in urgent document despatches. Lets hope the dispute is resolved quickly and to everyones satisfaction

admin Courier News, Skipton Postal Strike, Royal Mail