Anyone use Royal Mail Click & Drop?

[GetPaper]

I currently use My Hermes for my parcels. It was going okay but it seems some of my parcels are not being cared for as some are getting there damaged etc.

I use a label printer at the moment and the Myhermes website allows you to resize labels to the thermal label sizes. But Royal Mail only have it in A5 and A4.

how do you find the click and drop service and how do you print your labels off?

 

[Pish_Pash]

I use Royal Mail 'Drop & Go' ....is that different?

 

[e-vulture]

I do sometimes out of necessity and It's an absolute nuisance! Whoever designed it should be tortured by sending 10000 parcels through this service...

My reason ? You can only do one label at a time, that means find the parcel -> enter size and weight -> log into paypal -> click through three payment screens -> download label -> print it out (and waste most of a sheet of paper, cut it out and tape on. Repeat for the rest of your parcels.

I'm amazed they couldn't have the tiniest amount of sense that myhermes have to create a basket for shipments and to automatically tile the labels on a sheet so you can use sticky labels. Is that really too much to ask for an organization the size of Royal Mails? I guess they didn't bother to do any testing or any research into how people might actually want to use it.

I think click and drop could have been great, but it's a usability fail at the moment.

 

[GetPaper]

I use Royal Mail 'Drop & Go' ....is that different?

I think that may be the same as click and drop

 

[GetPaper]

I do sometimes out of necessity and It's an absolute nuisance! Whoever designed it should be tortured by sending 10000 parcels through this service...

My reason ? You can only do one label at a time, that means find the parcel -> enter size and weight -> log into paypal -> click through three payment screens -> download label -> print it out (and waste most of a sheet of paper, cut it out and tape on. Repeat for the rest of your parcels.

I'm amazed they couldn't have the tiniest amount of sense that myhermes have to create a basket for shipments and to automatically tile the labels on a sheet so you can use sticky labels. Is that really too much to ask for an organization the size of Royal Mails? I guess they didn't bother to do any testing or any research into how people might actually want to use it.

I think click and drop could have been great, but it's a usability fail at the moment.

I totally get what you are saying. I think because it is new they may still need to develop the service but I suppose as an online business sellers point of view it does take quite long to process. The Myhermes process I think is fantastic in regards to how you can book parcels.

I suppose a good way to make them match Myhermes online booking system would be from feedback from online sellers and actually telling them what it is that's needed. As far as my experience with the login screen it's not bad as its nice and clear without any excess on the side of the screen. If Royal Mails click and drop service had the Myhermes booking system + an extra option on your account if you wanted the "one off" collection they offer for around £6 I think. Then that would probably the ultimate postage tool for sellers.

 

[Pish_Pash]

I think that may be the same as click and drop

Actually I now realise that drop & go is a different service...you basically pay retail prices but you lob your sack full of packages over the counter then go (hence drop & go)

 

[GetPaper]

Actually I now realise that drop & go is a different service...you basically pay retail prices but you lob your sack full of packages over the counter then go (hence drop & go)

Just had a look at the Drop and Go service and yes it is different. Click and drop is the one where you have to book everything before and stick the labels off etc and then go and drop it in the branch.

And Drop and Go is when you have a RM card where they take your payment from. So basically what you do is just package your stuff stick an address on and give it to them. I had a look on the RM website and there seems to be a manifest as well do you need to fill that it everytime?

So do they do the part of calculating the postage prices and stick the stamps on?

Although it looks good, I just think RM need to develop a similar system to Myhermes booking and IMO the online guys would really benefit.

 

[Pish_Pash]

So do they do the part of calculating the postage prices and stick the stamps on?

Yes, they do......yes there's a sheet to fill in to tell them which postal service you want, but I've automated that bit. Therefore I simply do my packing, lob it all in a bag, print out the manifest & then drop it off at the post office. Job done.

 

[Page]

Err hang on Pish Pash

There may be reasons - but did you know that they will collect from you and I am guessing that you do enough business for this to be free

PM me if you want to know more because I am not monitoring this thread - just doing some time wasting - lol

 

[Pish_Pash]

Yes, they'll collect from me...but since 55% of my business if FBA (where Amazon post stuff out for me) & 10% B2B (where the packages are much larger so I use couriers), I don't actually have sufficient packages on a daily basis to make it worthwhile them coming to collect ...also it ties me down waiting in on someone collecting (oh yeah, & they want to charge me...for every collection....that'd be every day)....I'm actually only posting about 120-150 packages per week

 

[Jayser100]

I've just set up to use Click & Drop. I strongly suspect it only works really well for customers who (like me) have an OBA account with Royal Mail. That allows you to download all eBay and Amazon orders, set up a shipping model and just print them all out. It even automatically marks the item as 'shipped' for you. I only realised today that anyone who doesn't have a Royal mail OBA business collection account can't do that.

Not sure what it costs to have an OBA account these days, it used to be a £750 annual fee unless you spend 15K each year in which case, it's free but they might have put that set fee up in the last year or two. If you can afford the fee it's worth it because you get decent discounts on your postage, and a nice man with a van turns up every day to relieve you of your orders - no more time and fuel wasted going to the Post Office, and no more grumpy people queuing behind you whilst a member of staff puts the 19 packets or whatever you have, manually into their system. I can send a Mail Lite D1 packet with a pair of sunglasses in it on a basic airmail service, anywhere in the Eu for just over £1.50 a pop on OBA.

 

[Sparetoolparts]

I used drop and go with Royal Mail, and have found it to be a great service. I am shipping approx 150 envelopes a week. I know my local post master quite well now and he has forgone the manifest. I simply mark each parcel I want signed for and his staff keep an eye out for them. If my account is in the red, he still processes my parcels and I pay what I owe on my next visit.

 

[Pish_Pash]

I can send a Mail Lite D1 packet with a pair of sunglasses in it on a basic airmail service, anywhere in the Eu for just over £1.50 a pop on OBA.

Wow...that got my attention. I have an OBA account I never used it, as I couldn't work out how to integrate with Linnworks & the notion of sorting all my packets into whopping great big sacks is a joke (since most of my business, is FBA, I only have about 20 packaes to post out each day spread across, large Letter UK, Large letter EU, Large letter world wide & some tracked services - there'll be about five D1 envelopes in each huge sack!). I also never fully go to the bottom of the savings (talk about a head trip!). I'm paying about £2.45 to europe for a large letter upto 100g (with no VAT within that price that I can claim back...so that's a firm £2.45)...so to hear that it can go for £1.50 is a monster saving! (I'm figuring your cost is actually £1.80 inc VAT?)

Do your sunglasses go as a large letter or is that small parcel class?

At the moment I'm still paying retail prices via Drop & Go (because it fits with my way of working & I can claim any lost items). One other thing that is tempting is franking, yes, yes, I know lots of hidden costs, but even so, for large letter class the cost savings are compelling (plus I can still claim!)

 

[LPB 123]

I've just set up to use Click & Drop. I strongly suspect it only works really well for customers who (like me) have an OBA account with Royal Mail. That allows you to download all eBay and Amazon orders, set up a shipping model and just print them all out. It even automatically marks the item as 'shipped' for you. I only realised today that anyone who doesn't have a Royal mail OBA business collection account can't do that.

We don't have an OBA account but click and drop works well for us too. We import our eBay orders and it uploads tracking info or marks them as dispatched and just pay via Paypal for all each day parcels in one go. We only use Royal Mail for a small amounts of our parcels (5-10 a day) but then can drop them off at a depot, which is luckily only 100 yards away.

Obviously we don't have the shipping discounts etc of shipping in bulk with OBA account but click and drop works nicely for us.

The 2D labels with proof of delivery are set to be working in January for all users of click and drop. I think when this is in place we will move over to click and drop with OBA for all of our parcels. From users of DMO who already have it in place, they've said that eBay recognise this as proof of delivery in INR cases.

 

[DEFCON1]

We have been using 'Click & Drop' for around 6 weeks now (with OBA).
We started off with Drop & Go at the Post Office, but after growing to around 5 sacks a day it was starting to get a bit impractical for us & the local P.O. so decided to switch.

We qualified for Free Collection which is very handy as No more trips to the P.O.
They come to us 14:30 Mon-Fri (on the dot) which works out a great time for us to get everything in order.
A few bugs though..
Whilst the main click & drop interface isn't too bad, I find the overall experience on the Royal Mail website an absolute joke.
The navigation is horrendous to say the least.

There doesn't appear to be any way to view prices as you go.
If there is, I haven't found it yet.
So, it's just one monthly invoice to view what you're spending.
On the flip side, in effect we now have a months worth of credit/cashflow in hand which is nice.

Tip: Stock up on labels & the rest of the gear. (which is free from them).
We got a bit low on labels last week, even though we ordered early, they unfortunately sent us the wrong type.
As a result we were knacked for 3 days & trundled back to the post office until we finally got the right ones.

Still early days for us & we still haven't fully learn't how to use the system to it's full effect.
But overall it seems the right way to go for us.
Time will tell....