Best courier services in South Africa

3 years ago 1

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South Africa has a healthy ecosystem of courier companies giving businesses and individual customers a wide range of options for sending or receiving all types of packages.

The South African Post Office’s (Sapo’s) infamous track record for late deliveries and lost packages has created a gap in the market for private players specialising in small package deliveries.

Add the boom in online shopping and the growing online presence of South African stores following the Covid-19 pandemic, and it becomes easy to understand why courier services are in big demand.

MyBroadband recently polled our readers — tech-savvy early adopters, business decision-makers, and leaders — to hear which courier services they would most likely use.

Out of 1,561 responses, one definitively stood out — The Courier Guy.

Nearly half the respondents said the company was their preferred service provider.

Founded in 2000, The Courier Guy’s footprint has grown to 22 depots and 170 kiosks across South Africa.

It employs 2,200 drivers and performed 14 million deliveries in 2021, with a customer base of 155,000 trading clients.

The graph below shows the most-used courier services among MyBroadband readers in January 2023.

The other most popular courier services were PostNet, DHL, Aramex, and RAM hand-to-hand couriers.

Unlike The Courier Guy, all four of these providers are global companies.

The ten courier services we included in our poll have fairly solid reputations for getting packages to their destination on time and in good condition.

However, many also require taking up a long-term contract or opening an account with set fees to send packages.

While that is ideal for businesses guaranteed to require frequent delivery services every month, it is often not great for individuals who only want to send packages every so often.

Fortunately, there are a handful of services that cater for one-off deliveries.

Some of these options only operate between branches, pickup spots, or lockers, but make up for it by being more affordable than door-to-door services.

Below is a list of five reputed courier companies in South Africa that offer parcel-sending services without an account.

DawnWing (DPD Laser)

DawnWing is the trading division of DPD Laser, which operates over 25 depots in South Africa and employs over 1,500 workers.

It offers specialist solutions to specific industries but also provides a “Send a parcel” door-to-door service that can be used by individuals and businesses who don’t hold an account.

Collection and delivery address details can be filled out online, with payment by credit card.

Customers can also select a date on which a package needs to be collected, starting with next-day collection. Shipping options include Overnight, SameDay, Next Day/Economy and Road Freight services.

DSV

DSV is an international logistics giant with 24 distribution centres in South Africa and 1.8 million monthly parcel deliveries in the country.

It offers two prepaid services through the DSV Direct website, DSV Locker and DSV Courier, allowing users to send packages without an account.

DSV Locker lets customers drop off and collect packages from lockers at around 400 Engen fuel stations in South Africa.

Prices for DSV locker deliveries range from R75 to R120, depending on the size and weight of the package.

DSV Courier works like a conventional door-to-door service and delivers to 1,600 towns nationwide.

Paxi

Paxi’s store-to-store service is not necessarily the fastest, but certainly one of the cheapest ways to send a package.

The company offers two basic delivery sizes — standard and large — with either 3–5 or 7–9 business days for delivery.

Prices range between R59.95 and R129.95, depending on the package size and delivery time.

Customers can buy a Paxi bag from a supported Pep, Shoe City, or Tekkie Town store. A list of participating outlets is available on the Paxi website.

Pudo

Pudo is a locker-to-locker, locker-to-kiosk, locker-to-door, and door-to-locker service owned and operated by The Courier Guy.

Customers can choose from 1,100 lockers across the country where they can drop off and send packages.

Prices start at R50 for the smallest packages weighing less than 2kg sent via locker-to-locker or locker-to-kiosk or R60 for sending the same package from door-to-locker or locker-to-door.

If your stick with the locker-to-locker or locker-to-kiosk options, pricing only goes up R10 for packages weighing up to 20kg, provided they fit in the largest lockers.