A major reason Solid Wood Tops appeals to customers and partners alike is that we can often match enquiries to local businesses. This is great for many reasons: supporting local trade, less environmental impact, better ongoing support which all ultimately can even lead to a more competitive price. If we manage to find a very local partner, there is even a discount to arrange to pick the top up yourself from their workshop.
We work with a number of excellent wood working companies, with the main focus being on quality and value for money – some of them have the capacity to hand deliver desk/table tops, monitor stands and shelves all over the country, others don’t. As a result, there are some parts of the country that do not have any ‘hand delivery’ service. Alternatively, perhaps you are located outside of mainland UK, in that case a courier will also be required.
If you are enamoured by our desk tops, but find yourself outside of our delivery range, don’t worry, all our partners are equipped to package your top to be picked up by your courier of choice.
Verified Customer Review
“I’ve just received my tabletop in Finland[…] special thanks for the delivery (I’ve ordered the courier pick-up to deliver it to Finland from the UK)[…] the [Solid Wood Tops] team did their best to ensure it would arrive undamaged.”
Read the full review on Trustpilot: Ilia Kukharev
Our partners want to make getting quality furniture to you as affordable as possible. All agree to provide a discount to the order if you need to arrange your own courier. What is involved in arranging your own courier to deliver your desk top?
Working out dimensions
When putting your order request together, you will have to hand the important dimensions. Length, width, depth etc. You will also perhaps know the thickness of the top. Just near the price when using the calculator pages, you will also see an estimate for the weight of the top.
Generally we just use the basic dimensions, but if you are concerned, round up the weight, and add 10cm to all sides for packaging allowances.
How to get a courier quote
Choosing the right courier very much depends on the size of your order.
Smaller items (monitor stands and small desk tops) or thinner items (monitor stands, picture shelves and standard shelves), could be defined as a parcel and can be handled by the standard couriers. Comparison sites like ‘parcel hero’ and ‘parcel 2 go’ are a good place to start. If you live outside of mainland UK, it is often cheaper to use a comparison site based in your locale. We tend to be able to ship a standard size monitor raiser for approximately £15-30 on average.
Larger desk tops might need a more specialist approach. Standard couriers will likely reject, or massively over quote the job. In addition, they will sometimes use systems that could damage the top (think large conveyor belts, employees not equipped to handle heavy/awkward items etc).
If that is the case, we tend to use services found on sites like ‘shiply’ or ‘any van’. This will be a much smaller network, better provisioned to handle larger, heavier and tricker items with care. Generally quotes for these services range between £50-70.
Arranging insurance
It is a shame to think about the worst case this early on in proceedings, but from our experience, it is necessary. Especially for orders going outside of mainland UK.
As you are co-ordinating your own courier, you will need to handle the insurance process directly if things go awry. It might be tempting to risk it, but there is a reason why many of our partners don’t work with couriers as a default for their logistic requirements. It shouldn’t cost more than a few pounds.
Packaging your order
Our partners use a variety of techniques to ensure your order is suitably packaged. It depends on the item as to the exact materials used; from bubble wrap and boxes to corner protectors and pallet wrap.
The cost for packaging materials is absorbed by the partner, so there are no extra charges, and you can rest assured that it has sufficient packaging to handle all the normal dings and mishaps that could happen on the journey.
Handling the documentation
Depending on the chosen courier, and the ultimate destination, the amount of documentation required will vary. As a general rule, send onto the partner every email you get from the logistics company you have chosen.
When forwarding emails, ensure attachments are included. Sometimes, links are sent for you to download the relevant PDFs – if possible, download these PDFs and attach them as documents to the email (occasionally they require the account to be authenticated with your username and password, rather than authenticating by the session token in the link).
When entering the value of the package for customs, be sure to enter the full amount for the top, this could later have a bearing on any insurance claim.
Extra notes
Large tops
Issues start to happen with larger tops. We would categorise large tops as 160x80cm and over. We would not generally recommend using a courier for large tops.
L-shaped tops
We wouldn’t recommend using a courier at all for L-shaped tops. That said, we haven’t much experience either. A pallet might be required, or using bolt connectors to assemble the top into an L-shape on premises.
Multiple desk tops
If you require multiple desk tops, it might be worth considering a pallet delivery company instead.
Long distances
The further the order has to travel, the more likely issues are to crop up. In addition, the courier costs will start to rack up. We have coordinated tops to go as far as Spain, but Australia is probably a continent (or three) too far.
Import taxes/customs
None of our partners are set up to handle purchases in other currencies or have any experience with import/export. They will simply be making an order, and you are arranging to pick it up from them.
Solid wood desk and table tops
Why Solid Wood Tops?
Custom size? Same price.
Desk top prices are worked out using a going market rate formula. There are no extra charges for non-regular sizes. Calculate your price and order in minutes.
FAQs
Learn more about our service, the quality of our partners sustainably sourced wood, how desk tops are priced, delivery timescales and more. Read our articles or FAQs.
Flexible delivery options
Our trusted partners are located around the country. Allow us to arrange delivery, pick up from the workshop yourself, or book your own courier.
Money back promise
Order requests have no cost or obligation. If you do decide to confirm, you are protected if there is a problem with the size, design, quality or wood. Order with confidence.
