Absolute Snow

We started Absolute Snow in 2004 as BargainBoards from our MD’s garage. We now have our own offices and warehouse, and the same MD still owns the business.

We send out skis, poles, snowboards, snowboard bags – the list goes on – primarily to addresses in the UK but also internationally. We’re always trying new areas such as camping gear, and we hope to get a handle on other areas of the outdoor market too. In five years’ time, we hope to be selling more globally.

When we started looking for a delivery company to support us as we grew, it was important for us to be able to understand the services and pricing structure, and for the carrier to be completely transparent about their prices as we had been caught out by higher than expected invoices from our previous carrier on occasion.

In addition, with our previous carrier we experienced reliability issues – no one turned up to collect the day’s shipments, or they couldn’t find the customer’s address – so we also wanted to have total confidence in the reliability of their service.

The overseas integration between Parcelforce Worldwide and local postal and delivery organisations is a big plus here too. Our Customer Services used to spend a lot of time liaising between the carrier and the customer when delivery hadn’t been made at their home address, so having the option to deliver to a local Post Office in the UK is really helpful.

Before using Parcelforce Worldwide, we were having real problems with customs clearance – for example, in one month we had every single international shipment returned to us by customs. Our International Sales Consultant at Parcelforce Worldwide, Andrew Cassels, gave us invaluable advice on creating the necessary customs paperwork. I had no idea about export tariff codes until I spoke to Andrew, and the automatic generation of the necessary customs paperwork and labels make it all so much easier!

Matt Pyne-Gilbert, General Manager