Say No To Online Postage

[completec]

I just wrote a short article for my UK clients regarding the new Royal mail online postage service. I think this is very dangerous idea long term for small websites and ecommerce in general and should be discouraged.

Anyone who wishes to use the article may do so as long as I get credit for it. You can link to my site or not that is not important it is the message that needs sharing.
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You may or may not be aware that Royal Mail yesterday launched an online postage stamp service. The idea is you can open an account online pre fund it with your credit or debit card and print postage labels with bar codes at home for your packets.

PLEASE PLEASE take the time to read this, this new service is not only bad for your local post office it could be worse for you!!!!

Before you go rushing off to use this new Royal Mail service there are a few things you may want to consider, that you may not think about in the rush of excitement.

First Reactions

I would imagine the reaction of most ebayers on hearing of the new “pay your postage online service” would be “Great I don’t have to queue in the post office” but let us just take a look at the pros and cons of "Do it yourself postage"

The Costs

Firstly, petty as this may sound consider this:

Who will be paying for the adhesive labels and ink to print all these trendy new labels??

That is correct YOU will, while your first reaction may be “but it’s only pennies” is it? Do you know how much a4 sheets of adhesive computer printable labels are?? You already know that ink is expensive right?? And don’t forget you need to print a full sheet at a time so you are not wasting labels. What if you only have 4 packets to send tomorrow. Yes you could print on normal paper, but do you really want to be trimming cutting and sellotaping and hoping your label doesn’t fall off and your packet not be delivered to your customer?

Let’s say the labels and ink only cost you £5 a month ( and thats being VERY conservative) well that’s £60 per year MORE than you are paying now, and your costs probably already increased with the pricing by size changes.

But this doesn't matter because you don't pay the postage your buyers do! If Ebay traders are not careful the time will VERY QUICKLY arrive where the postage costs make buying a new item cheaper, or from an online store who offer free delivery. DON'T burst your own bubble people!

But At Least I Won't Have To Queue At The Post Office

Really? You have your bag of packages at home with your internet postage labels all attached at your expense. That doesn’t alter the fact you STILL have to take them to the post office. The staff there are very nice people, however they WILL NOT be allowing anyone to just come in and dump a bag of mail in the corner. That is a health and safety hazard and post offices are public buildings that BY LAW have to follow health and safety practices. So you will STILL have to wait your turn in the queue to hand your bag of packages to the staff.

Sure you can try cramming them in a letter box if the items you sell are small enough, but you may find if just one other ebayer beats you to it, the box is full.


ANOTHER ISSUE

I have a friend who does a lot of selling on ebay. He purchased a set of “Digital Ebay Scales” online, certified to be accurate for the bargain price of £29.99.

He went to the post office all prepared with his estimates written on his packages, nearly all of them were wrong because the scales weren’t accurate. Don’t kid yourselves to buy a set of scales sensitive enough to weigh letters ACCURATELY will cost you in excess of £300.

The BIG issue


Do you use a nice local post office????? Whether or not you are aware of it, most local post offices are actually sub post offices, they are private businesses they are NOT owned by the Post Office themselves they are agents or franchises.

Like any business they have overheads, staff to pay and profits to make to stay open. If you turn up with your bag of mail sure they HAVE to take it from you but they have made no money at all from your visit, how long do you think that will last???

One thing I am almost sure you know is how many small post offices have closed down all over the country in recent years. Why did they close down? Because the post office lost out on many pensions that are now paid directly into the bank, that was a big chunk of their business. Then as you also know the government in its wisdom gave TV licensing to another company. More of the business gone. They are also trying to promote that people tax their cars online, more of the business gone. One of the few things that has helped your local post offices stay open is Ebay packets and post. Take that away and you WILL see even more offices close.

What happens when more small post offices close down because business is being taken away??? Where do you take your packages then??? To a main post office which now has even larger queues because the smaller local offices closed.

Where are most the main offices??? In town and city centres where you will be paying £3 plus parking every time you want to post your items????

If these offices go, what happens if the website is down or wont take your card???

Still think this service is a good idea and will save you time??? Well it really is up to you, like every other thing in life it really is a case of use it or lose it. Please think carefully which is more inconvenient queuing for 10 minutes in your local post office when it is busy, or trecking all the way into a town or city centre, parking up and lugging your mail to a main office to send off .

We build websites for a living and are all for online shopping and transactions, however neither us or our clients want to see the distribution network that sends our goods get closed down.

In our humble opinion this new service looks like a time saver, but in the long run it will cost your business more money and time.



"About the author"
Gary McHugh is owner of 2001 web who specialise in ecommerce solutions

[GNU]

Its the same with online banking, the banks sell off local branches and make staff redundant as customers become self serving.

Im closing my bank account after 16 years, and my mobile phone of 6 years since they offshored their call centres.

None of the savings are passed back to me as a customer, it damages the UK economy IMO, and the service is absolutely terrible.

I have had to make twice as many calls as things are not done properly first time round, this has cost me money, I have been lied to by staff, it has been implied that I myself am lying when I have subsequently tried to get things put right, and asked for my money back.

So Im off, either to a bank with a long term commitment to UK staff, or to an online only bank.

Another one is BT sending electronic bills to 'save the trees', I think E-Bills are a good idea, but wish there was a bit more honesty regarding the motives.

[Kent Accountant]

Totally support your stance on this. Gradually the Post Office are whittling away at the sub post office profit margins including closing the card account in 2010

Online postage is the last straw for one of our clients who is now intending to put his business up for sale while he still has one :(

[4dhosting]

This isn't a new thing though!

You've been able to signup for Royal Mail SmartStamp for a couple of years now.

[mattk]

The absolute worse part of the eBay experience is having to waste your Saturday morning/lunch hour queuing at the post office.

The sooner someone comes up with a system to take post offices out of the loop, the better in my opinion.

[4dhosting]

The absolute worse part of the eBay experience is having to waste your Saturday morning/lunch hour queuing at the post office.

The sooner someone comes up with a system to take post offices out of the loop, the better in my opinion.


If you're a big enough seller on eBay then why not get a ParcelForce account so they collect it from you?

Even if you send enough by Royal Mail each day they'll come collect the postage bag from you!

I admit if you're a private seller it doesn't help much.

[garyk]

Well we used smartstamp in my last business since its launch and it was superb. Im sorry but you dont have to queue up with your letters, even when we did mailshots we used just stick em in the box outside ourselves so saved no end of time.

For private users I can see some validity in your argument, for business users its a non brainer.

Gary

[Dawg]

Another, smaller, thing why I think this sucks: it is based on Smart Stamp, and Smart Stamp sucks.
I would be prepared to pay the price of labels and ink :

IF I could print an image, in full colour, and to a size not dwarfed by the barcode

IF I could print on small labels: these Smart Stamp labels are big on a DL envelope, they are unusable on a postcard, so I can't use them to send out, e.g. 1000 promo postcards.

IF the software was user friendly. Both times I've used Smart Stamp I have had to fight to get it working. Maybe I'm just to used to the ease of Photoshop, Office and Dreamweaver, but a reasonable level of functionality would be nice.

You can do all the above in the USA, and you can have sheets printed for you with your own images. It is just Royal Maill trying to save a crap system by opening it up to non account holders instead of getting a new system up.

*Extra rant* When this fails the regulator, Offpost or somesuch, will fine the Post Office. The Post Office will pay the fine to the Treasury. Any profit or loss the Post Office makes goes to/is covered by....the Treasury. And round it goes. *End Extra rant*

[Ozzy]

The absolute worse part of the eBay experience is having to waste your Saturday morning/lunch hour queuing at the post office.

The sooner someone comes up with a system to take post offices out of the loop, the better in my opinion.

It only costs £400 a year to have Royal Mail to add your home/office to their collection route and pick your post from your home. So if you do sell enough stuff on ebay this might be worth considering.

I used to have the collect from my home daily when I started my business, and now they collect from my office daily. It saves having to go to the post office or having to drop all the post off at the letterboxes. Mind you, we do send out 3 sacks of post a day :D

[Cornish Steve]

This concept has been around in other countries for a while. For some it works, and for others it doesn't. To my mind, it's inevitable. It's just another trend that saves money and will become increasingly prevalent.

We can't fight progress. While some people will lose jobs at a local post office, others will be recruited as more efficient companies expand. I think there's a term used in the business world for this: creative destructionism.

[jessicat]

Grr - Another reason to say no to online postage. After a huge amount of hassle, I printed out one of their labels last month, stuck it onto the letter, and then forgot to post the letter before the expiry date. On principle, I applied for a refund, since I'm not giving them 23p for no reason! Today, I received a very rude automated email:

----------------------------------------------------

On Oct 03, 2006, you requested a refund for the following purchase that you made via online postage:

blah blah blah

We have made some checks against this item and can inform you that your requested refund has been refused.

Please note that Royal Mail may prosecute against any fraudulent postings that are received. Users can be traced via the encryption within the unique bar code on items purchased via online postage.

Should you have any queries regarding this refund please contact Royal Mail customer services on 0870 240 9085, or write to: Royal Mail Online Postage Team, Dearne House, Cortonwood Drive, Brampton, BARNSLEY S73 0UF

Note : This is an automatically generated mail. Please do not reply.

---------------------------------------------

It seems like they're basically accusing me of some kind of unspecified fraudulent activity, and in order to find out what I've been accused of, I need to write to them (thereby doubling the cost of the stamp they already haven't refunded) or phone their national rate phone number.

I know I'm making a lot of fuss for 23p but does anyone else think this is a bit of a rude way to treat one's customers?

Jess

[Dawg]

Goldctrsteve:
creative destructionism.

And there I was thinking that folk in Georgia were into destructive creationism...:)

[Cornish Steve]

Goldctrsteve:


And there I was thinking that folk in Georgia were into destructive creationism...:)
Very clever. Wish I'd thought of that. :)

[Arcadian]

I couldn't use SmartStamp as my Norton configuration wouldn't let me connect to it. I'm still trying to get my deposit money back 9 months later. As for this new thing it DOES say on the site that everything has to be taken to the post office but when I queried this by e-mail I received a reply - a mere ten days later - telling me that you only have to take recorded delivery/special delivery items to the post office.The other joy is that it takes about 10 clicks and five minutes to print one stamp.

I haven't got my deposit back from that stupid system either. No, I don't learn by my mistakes!

I enquired about franking machines. Brilliant expect that a) the mail must be put in a pouch and taken to the post office or mailed in a special box - no probs as there is one near hubby's office. b) you have to get the pouches from - guess where - the post office. The collect system is fine if you don't mind a whole load of people knowing which days you're away ....I give up. I'm thinking of paying my neighbour's kids to do the post office run for me.

I don't give a **** if the post office franchises are losing money. How about providing a decent service like other businesses have to?!

[Eagle]

I enjoy taking a big stack of boxes into the Post Office and seeing the look of horror on their faces.

"Get to it, then!"

Bleedin' rip-off merchants - deserve all the work they get. grumble, grumble...

;)

[Toon]

I tried this and didn't like it. It costs more in labels and ink and I still have to go to the Post Office and most of them had the wrong amount on it. Total waste of time for me. My solution was to nicely ask the post office I deal with if I could open an account with them. We cam to an agreement where they keep my credit card, I take a bag full of parcels which I hand to them and leave and they just debit my card when they're finished and give me the receipts the next day ;)

[Award-Session]

This concept has been around in other countries for a while. For some it works, and for others it doesn't. To my mind, it's inevitable. It's just another trend that saves money and will become increasingly prevalent.

We can't fight progress. While some people will lose jobs at a local post office, others will be recruited as more efficient companies expand. I think there's a term used in the business world for this: creative destructionism.

The idea of online postage is great for small businesses. When RM rolled it out, they had an advert showing a small business woman using the system with glowing praise... so I regestered for it right away! I'm always an early adopter of technology that potentially saves time, money and improves my customer experience.

But here in the UK, the Online Postage takes about three minutes per stamp to purchase... if you're lucky! It's all very quick... until you get to the 'Confirm Order' page. Then it just sits there slowly doing it's stuff.

In USA, they've franchised it out to commercial companies. Which has to a better way!

Sometimes you can get two to five stamps done fairly quickly, but after that (as if they know you're a business) the breaks go on and the whole thing grinds down to a painfully slow speed! Mostly it's slow from the start! Probably to protect their 'Smart Stamp' system where a £5 monthly sofware charge is levied!

Typical British 'institutional body' trait... go along with a great idea, and think of a million reasons it can't be done or won't work!

Royal Mail needs to get real about this Online Postage... either do it well or close it down. It takes ages and ages to get into your Profile> postage Records too. I can't see consumer waiting three-five minutes to buy a stamp! What if Amazon took this long to order anything? They be dead in the water over night!! As it stands, it's totally rubbish! You have to laugh though; at this country's Victorian ways of thinking in certain institutions.

Speak to anyone at RM, especially the guys who empty the post boxes, and all you get is negativity. They don't give a s**t about anything! What a grand business culture, eh?

[websnail]

Blimey... it's a lazarus thread back from the dead... but it's interesting reading the opinions from three years ago, so here, after a lot of time travel, is another opinion.

I use the online postage system through paypal for my eBay items that are large letter or smaller... It's an absolute boon and cuts my required "Oh no he's an ebayer" time at the post office considerably.

I also learned that using some decent C5 envelopes along with a Canon Pixma printer (rear loaded) makes for a perfect direct printing system for my envelopes. I can even print the customs forms on the back that the Paypal/RM system provides... another time saver.

I'm still having to take my small packages up the road to the post office but I've learned that the smart move is to organise the packages into sets so that the same weight items can be processed quickly and reduce the wait times for the poor sod who joined the queue after me.

Interestingly enough though, I've noticed that the bulk of people at 4pm at my post office are in fact other Ebay or small business sellers who are dispatching their orders, so there's a lot more patience. I pity the old dears wanting who need a stamp though :redface:

Finally, the really nice thing is I've noticed is that the post office staff in most of the post offices I use now are a lot more amenable than they were 2 years ago... The message that they are being kept in a job with this sort of post has obviously gotten through. I don't agree we should get rid of them for a multitude of reasons, many of them not selfish but community orientated.

I know the whole staff attitude thing can be a nightmare but it does always come down to individuals and even the ruddy awful PO that I avoided a few years back has been taken over and is much much nicer and more efficient.

Anyway... as for the rest of it... The smartstamp thing is something I'm dreading having to use in the future and the stories about franking are no better... But, all something for the future as sales grow... :)

[quikshop]

It's an absolute boon and cuts my required "Oh no he's an ebayer" time at the post office considerably.

We used to have a running competition to see who could get the post office queue the longest, us or fellow Internet traders using the same post office :D

[Award-Session]

Blimey... it's a lazarus thread back from the dead... but it's interesting reading the opinions from three years ago, so here, after a lot of time travel, is another opinion.

I use the online postage system through paypal for my eBay items that are large letter or smaller... It's an absolute boon and cuts my required "Oh no he's an ebayer" time at the post office considerably.

Snip...

I'm still having to take my small packages up the road to the post office but I've learned that the smart move is to organise the packages into sets so that the same weight items can be processed quickly and reduce the wait times for the poor sod who joined the queue after me.

Snip...

Well, you don't really have to take your packages to the post office. That's tempting them to check the weight and postage for each one! If like me, you have an industrial estate nearby, you might find that it has one of those huge post boxes with a drawer for large bags of franked mail to go into. I use one each night for my 'Online Postage' paid packages. Job done in ten minutes, no pedantic 'Mail Mistresses' saying "This one's a gram over... you'll have to pay another 85p!" RM does't care about 1 gram... they have better things to be doing! It's just the Jobs Worths behind the counters! You can avoid them and all will be just hunky dory!

However, I never cheat on the mail pricing. That's just plain stupid and can land your customers with an extra amount plus a £1 admin charge for an item that (s)he's already paid the shipping for. Really not on!

With regards to the culture within RM, I have to say it's a great pity that the mamagement structure has enabled this to develop the way it has. Locally, I once watched an RM 'LDV' van trying to push another RM LDV van from behind, with rear wheels spinning and smoking, at the traffic lights. I was horrified at their pranks... but somehow, not surprised!

Of course not all are like this and it is an extreme case, but why then was I not surprised by the behaviour?

Why is it that someone living in Germany can sent me a 5kG package for far less money than I can send him the same package? I sent a package to Germany last week by DHL for 50% of the Parcel Force cost, and on a next day service... AND, they collected it too?

If private companies can do it, although DHL is part of the Duesche Bundespost, why can't our postal services. If we as small businesses are to compete on a global scale through the Internet, then we need to DEMAND better delivery services from our main parcel delivery provider, PF! At the moment they give us very poor value for money when it comes to offshore deliveries.

The scale of charges that PF employ is just a complete joke. How anyone will pay their retail prices is completely beyond me! And there's no need to either!!

With regard to RM within the UK, they lose very few parcels and nearly all arrive on time, in my experience, so well done to them for that at least.

Many years ago, I used to manufacture guitar amplifiers and send them all over the world. Economical delivery has always been a problem in the UK. That little bit of water in the English channel has been a great excuse for inflated shipping costs ever since I can remember.

In the 1990's, we represented a company in Cary, IL, USA. We mainly paid them in goods we had made here in the UK. A great exchange rate fix! But for us to send goods to them Via UPS (on contract) was approximately a third more in cost for similar weights/volume! A unique situation where we could directly compare the costs between the same two addresses... except ours was ONLY going in the opposite direction! So how does this help our fragile economy in the UK. How do we allow it?

Sorry for the rant, but it all makes my blood boil! Let's be far less willing to let things compromise OUR hard work!? B**ch about it NOW!

[websnail]

Interesting post... Just one thing which I learned from being sat next to an RM delivery driver in Casualty one looong night a few weeks back.

Apparently RM are forced by the regulator to sell their "last mile" services (ie: final delivery) at a cut price rate to their competitors such as TNT, etc... all of whom then undercut RM on their bulk mail services and take away the bread and butter income that used to prop up the costs.

He was fairly "animated" about the whole thing and it makes sense... Why on earth should Royal Mail be forced to offer cut price costs to a competitor that then essentially steals the custom from RM and making a tidy profit... Any why is it that TNT, Deutches Post, etc... are not forced to do the same in their respective countries for RM, etc... It's slightly odd to say the least.

[consultant]

Gary,

you raise valid points, but the presentation online postage gives is better than a simple label and a couple stamps!

As for scales, we use a £7 set from Aldi and have only had one issue after several hundred parcels!

Anyway, have I missed something - you say this service launched yesterday - is this different to the service I have been using for a couple years?

[websnail]

Anyway, have I missed something - you say this service launched yesterday - is this different to the service I have been using for a couple years?
Erm... apologies but yes...

You missed the date the thread was started... :redface:

[dingbat]

Gary,

you raise valid points, but the presentation online postage gives is better than a simple label and a couple stamps!

As for scales, we use a £7 set from Aldi and have only had one issue after several hundred parcels!


Are they the 5kg kitchen scales? If so, I've got those too and they are brilliant. :)

You get the odd gram discrepancy between each of the post office's scales anyway.

[consultant]

doh!!!!!

When I went to the thread, the OP was on a page of it's own - I totally missed the age of the post!

[websnail]

doh!!!!!

When I went to the thread, the OP was on a page of it's own - I totally missed the age of the post!
Not to worry, been there, done that... you can borrow my T-shirt ;)

[Ishumashi]

Save the rain forrest ! :)

[alanc]

OK, the previous poster is busy resurrecting old threads for spam purposes, but for once, I'm pleased, because the thread's starting post is really quite amusing. It's funny looking back at the OP's gripes about something (online postage) that we now take for granted. Some of his objections are ridiculous.

[stephanielarry]

Part of the absolute worst experience losing your eBay Saturday lunchtime / queue at the post office.

[poorlittlefish]

I don't think it's true to say that you waste a whole sheet of labels because you get to choose which label position you want to use. When I've used it, however, I had to do each label individually and I found that a bit of a pain. Some kind of bulk adding option, via CSV file or something, would be great (maybe it's there, haven't used the service recently).

I think it's a cheek to charge extra for including your logo in the label - after all, it's your label and ink so what is it costing them? Could they refuse your parcels if you print on labels that already include your logo, so bypassing their fee?

For me, it's convenient to have this facility in order to avoid the ridiculous Post Office queues that seem to be there no matter what day or time I go, but I'm really against how you're forced to post an item by a date that suits them. If I go to a Post Office and buy stamps, I'm not obliged to use those stamps by tomorrow, so why should I be forced to adhere to such a narrow time-frame for using this service?

Post Offices, at least round my way, must do good business judging by the number of people using them, but I wish they'd have a couple of windows devoted solely to people who just want to post things rather than sort out their car tax, TV licence, gas bills and all the other stuff they do these days.

[imaginarynumber]

I have only used the online service once but still had to take it to the post office because we send "signed for".

Our local sub post office lets us hand them the bags of parcels and a wad of cash and they do the weighing etc when they have a quiet moment. It is mutually beneficial.

The next day we do the same and they hand us the change and receipts.

Many post offices would probably be willing to do this- just ask them, you have noting to lose

[stephanielarry]

I'm sorry, but you do not have to queue up with your letters, even when we do the mailing, we spent all guards in the area outside of ourselves, then saved no end of time.

[imaginarynumber]

Hi Stephanielarry

Afraid I cannot understand your reply.

Are you using a free translation tool?

I don't wish to seem rude but your posts are very difficult to decipher.

[MASSEY]

I just print the postage online and take a risk on the signed for bit, its a shambles system, you print and then have to go post office for it to be stamped.

Most post offices are franchise anyway so they make nothing out of you taking up their time.

[gibby]

Some post offices are starting to refuse online mail.
I was in a post office just last Saturday & the next person along was getting really annoyed at the refusal. A member of staff came out & explained that they did not have the room for all this mail that they were not getting paid for it. I really don't blame them.

We did look at an on-line business account with RM a year or so ago & was told then by the rep that not all post offices were willing to take the mail.

I do feel sorry for the post office owners. The main we use are great, get the parcels through really quickly & always open a second counter if the queue starts to grow.

Saying that we have another one a few miles away & the main person is miserable as sin, very slow & seem to charge us more on average per parcel.

G