Royal Mail OBA

[Greenslake]

Hi all! I have been looking into opening an OBA as I exceed the threshold sent quite a bit, we have just been taking around 40 large letters/ parcels to the local post office every day throught he click and drop service, but it takes up a fair bit of time to drop them off. I was curious if you have an account do you get free collections and if so how frequent can they be? Thanks!

 

[Mr D]

Free collections when you spend £15k a year with royal mail last I looked.
Can get paid collections for a relatively small sum. A few quid a day.

We use click & drop with our OBA account. Just take bags to post office, hand in manifest sheet and away - seconds to a few minutes depending on queue.

 

[Bronco78th]

Think its about £900 p/a if you have to pay for a collection. inc VAT

The company im working for have a collection which im in charge of but ive just started my own click and drop account as im leaving next year to setup independently, so getting my infrastructure ready and currently send maybe 10 items a week. (spare time/afterwork/lunchtime etc)

When i first did click and drop and actually took it to the post office, I was pretty surprised to discover they check it all, they scan each item etc...I questioned that.

For work, Our RM driver scans the collection label, scans the paper work then takes it.....occasionally the scanner makes a different sound which means we are in for a spot check to make sure we aren't taking the piss with our sizing etc.

Im genuinely surprised the arrangement between the PO and RM isn't the same....I drop the bags with items in, RM takes it, scans the manifest Ive handed to the PO and scans their collection and work it like that.

All my items are on the Click and Drop System so if im taking the mick they will still find out with random spot checks.

Seems very counter intuitive to me.

Anyway I had a support person ring me to see how im settling in with the system and I questioned why the PO have to scan, check everything as im not saving anytime by taking it up there.

They said shouldn't be the case and asked me for the PO I drop off at and said they will send a procedure reminder to them.

Since then I go up there and just drop the stuff off in an allocated area and leave, I know they they still have to check and scan everything themselves though. Crazy stuff!

 

[Greenslake]

Free collections when you spend £15k a year with royal mail last I looked.
Can get paid collections for a relatively small sum. A few quid a day.

We use click & drop with our OBA account. Just take bags to post office, hand in manifest sheet and away - seconds to a few minutes depending on queue.

Yeah thats what I read also, but when we phoned they made it sound like it was one free collection and that theya re not all free. It doesn't seem right unless i'm just misunderstanding it. We do something similar but with the proof of postage sheet and we then manually write the shipments out, it then gets stamped when dropped off ect, but it would be much better if this could be collected. I hope they will get back to me early next week

 

[Greenslake]

Think its about £900 p/a if you have to pay for a collection. inc VAT

The company im working for have a collection which im in charge of but ive just started my own click and drop account as im leaving next year to setup independently, so getting my infrastructure ready and currently send maybe 10 items a week. (spare time/afterwork/lunchtime etc)

When i first did click and drop and actually took it to the post office, I was pretty surprised to discover they check it all, they scan each item etc...I questioned that.

For work, Our RM driver scans the collection label, scans the paper work then takes it.....occasionally the scanner makes a different sound which means we are in for a spot check to make sure we aren't taking the piss with our sizing etc.

Im genuinely surprised the arrangement between the PO and RM isn't the same....I drop the bags with items in, RM takes it, scans the manifest Ive handed to the PO and scans their collection and work it like that.

All my items are on the Click and Drop System so if im taking the mick they will still find out with random spot checks.

Seems very counter intuitive to me.

Anyway I had a support person ring me to see how im settling in with the system and I questioned why the PO have to scan, check everything as im not saving anytime by taking it up there.

They said shouldn't be the case and asked me for the PO I drop off at and said they will send a procedure reminder to them.

Since then I go up there and just drop the stuff off in an allocated area and leave, I know they they still have to check and scan everything themselves though. Crazy stuff!

Yeah thats whats confusing alittle as we do pass the threshold nearly two fold, but when we asked about opening an OBA account we just got passed around on the phone and nobody seem to give any definite answers for us sadly.

haha yeah our local post office was doing the same!! it was a nigtmare for us and im sure the customers waiting behind us :/ thankfully now they just take them and sort them out at the end of the day before the last collection. It does take us some time to write the orders out on the proof of postage sheets and then take them up, so when we was reading about the collection it looks like we qualify but Royal Mail didn't seem to be that helpful with answering our queries.

random question but do you search for each order when buying the label or do you have a scanning system in place ect? I've been looking at ways to speed up the packing/ shipping process as it take s a good chunk out of the day for us

 

[Bronco78th]

Ahhhh I see where the confusion is......

OBA and Click and Drop are two different things. OBA you can manually upload items and is the advised back-up for click and drop if the Click and drop system is ever down. (thats how I understand it anyway)

My advise to you is register your interest with Click and Drop and a member of their sales team will call you.

https://business.parcel.royalmail.com/

Go to this link and in bottom right register your interest in Click and Drop and you won't look back.

One thing I like about it is its integrates into most websites (Ebay, Woocommerce, Amazon, EKM etc etc) to seamlessly bring in order and customer details...takes very little effort.... wonderful bit of kit.

I've never actually used JUST the OBA system.

I should also add if you don't have an OBA account you will be asked to open one as you can't have an Click and Drop account without an OBA account.

 

[Mr D]

For work, Our RM driver scans the collection label, scans the paper work then takes it....

At our post office the wife puts the bags round the side of the counter, queues up with manifest, hands it over and they scan it. Then post van driver takes all the bags and paperwork when he comes.
Sometimes when running late the wife hands the bags and paperwork directly to driver before he leaves the post office car park. PO and drivers are fine with that as needed.

 

[Mr D]

random question but do you search for each order when buying the label or do you have a scanning system in place ect? I've been looking at ways to speed up the packing/ shipping process as it take s a good chunk out of the day for us

With click & drop - as Bronco says sign up for that - the RM system imports our ebay orders and I print most of my labels in the morning. It saves weights used too so for instance if sold a fairy in August that weighed 400g as a parcel it remembers next time that the item was a parcel weighing 400g.
Using integrated postal labels the packing note and label are on the same sheet (can buy them online easily enough or use A4 paper and Sellotape).
When packing large letters and letters we can do 3 a minute. Parcels take a bit longer but if label already done wife can finish it quickly enough.

 

[Greenslake]

Ahhhh I see where the confusion is......

OBA and Click and Drop are two different things. OBA you can manually upload items and is the advised back-up for click and drop if the Click and drop system is ever down. (thats how I understand it anyway)

My advise to you is register your interest with Click and Drop and a member of their sales team will call you.


Go to this link and in bottom right register your interest in Click and Drop and you won't look back.

One thing I like about it is its integrates into most websites (Ebay, Woocommerce, Amazon, EKM etc etc) to seamlessly bring in order and customer details...takes very little effort.... wonderful bit of kit.

I've never actually used JUST the OBA system.

I should also add if you don't have an OBA account you will be asked to open one as you can't have an Click and Drop account without an OBA account.

I might have not been that clear, it’s a tad confusing sorry: p I do have a click and drop account and I have my orders automatically imported into it, the main reason for the OBA setup was for the free collections that I seem to be eligible for and potential discounted label prices I’m not too sure?

 

[Greenslake]

With click & drop - as Bronco says sign up for that - the RM system imports our ebay orders and I print most of my labels in the morning. It saves weights used too so for instance if sold a fairy in August that weighed 400g as a parcel it remembers next time that the item was a parcel weighing 400g.
Using integrated postal labels the packing note and label are on the same sheet (can buy them online easily enough or use A4 paper and Sellotape).
When packing large letters and letters we can do 3 a minute. Parcels take a bit longer but if label already done wife can finish it quickly enough.

Yeah I've been using click and drop for a good few months now and its defiantly saved time with the prefilled out customs labels ect, I invested in a thermal printer and that saved me some time too and money in the long run Royal Mail provides the thermal labels for free also which is great! I seem to have a standard click and drop account though from what the Royal Mail support reps have said, so I would need to register for the OBA but then another support rep said its not all free collections with the OBA, so I’m just a tad confused about it.

 

[Mr D]

Yeah I've been using click and drop for a good few months now and its defiantly saved time with the prefilled out customs labels ect, I invested in a thermal printer and that saved me some time too and money in the long run Royal Mail provides the thermal labels for free also which is great! I seem to have a standard click and drop account though from what the Royal Mail support reps have said, so I would need to register for the OBA but then another support rep said its not all free collections with the OBA, so I’m just a tad confused about it.

I like the OBA. Stuff I posted today I'm paying for on 8th January - monthly billing.
We aren't big enough for free collections - though we could arrange a collection with us paying for it.

 

[crackerjackcommerce]

Hi all! I have been looking into opening an OBA as I exceed the threshold sent quite a bit, we have just been taking around 40 large letters/ parcels to the local post office every day throught he click and drop service, but it takes up a fair bit of time to drop them off. I was curious if you have an account do you get free collections and if so how frequent can they be? Thanks!

I cannot add too much to what has been said but it does sound like you are certainly at the stage of benefiting from OBA.

IMHO OBA is simply a way of getting access to business tariff pricing and billing.

Click and Drop is a good user interface for managing your courier labels and is easier to navigate that the OBA website. Depending on what sales channels you sell on they may integrate with Click and Drop direct which will save you a lot of time.

We use a 3rd party software which scans the barcode on the customer shipping note and then scan item barcode and the courier label prints - it is integrated with Click and Drop. It does take time and investment to set it up, but the day to day packing/fulfilment operation is very smooth and accurate.

From what I understand RM collections are daily, not just a one-off. (did they mean once per day?). You either spend enough per year for free collections or pay the annual collection fee.

Shipstation is also quite good if you sell on multiple platforms with different couriers:
https://www.shipstation.com/uk/

But, from what I recall you have to set up your products on there or at least save your products so you can quickly apply the correct postage next time. Hence, most automated procedures will require some set up.

These days I suggest that as more platforms are data driven it is best to have your product information in a spreadsheet with a unique id on the first column i.e. SKU so if you ever need to import products into a new service you have the data on hand. For ecommerce:

SKU
BARCODE
NAME
COST PRICE
WEIGHT
DIMENSIONS

Good luck with it all. Also you could probably get a field agent to come and see you to show you how things work. We have had that several times with RM over the years here in Essex.

 

[Greenslake]

I like the OBA. Stuff I posted today I'm paying for on 8th January - monthly billing.
We aren't big enough for free collections - though we could arrange a collection with us paying for it.

I have just spoke to them and it looks like my OBA account is being setup now for the collections Can i still use click and drop as all my orders are currently imported in there and then create the manifest for the collection?

 

[Greenslake]

I cannot add too much to what has been said but it does sound like you are certainly at the stage of benefiting from OBA.

IMHO OBA is simply a way of getting access to business tariff pricing and billing.

Click and Drop is a good user interface for managing your courier labels and is easier to navigate that the OBA website. Depending on what sales channels you sell on they may integrate with Click and Drop direct which will save you a lot of time.

We use a 3rd party software which scans the barcode on the customer shipping note and then scan item barcode and the courier label prints - it is integrated with Click and Drop. It does take time and investment to set it up, but the day to day packing/fulfilment operation is very smooth and accurate.

From what I understand RM collections are daily, not just a one-off. (did they mean once per day?). You either spend enough per year for free collections or pay the annual collection fee.

Shipstation is also quite good if you sell on multiple platforms with different couriers:

But, from what I recall you have to set up your products on there or at least save your products so you can quickly apply the correct postage next time. Hence, most automated procedures will require some set up.

These days I suggest that as more platforms are data driven it is best to have your product information in a spreadsheet with a unique id on the first column i.e. SKU so if you ever need to import products into a new service you have the data on hand. For ecommerce:

SKU
BARCODE
NAME
COST PRICE
WEIGHT
DIMENSIONS

Good luck with it all. Also you could probably get a field agent to come and see you to show you how things work. We have had that several times with RM over the years here in Essex.

Hey thank you for the detailed reply! May i ask what you are using for the scanning of orders ect, as i would like a way to ensure that all items are packed correctly before the label is printed. I currently use Woocommerce for my intergration with click and drop.

In regards to click and drop if you have an OBA account can you still use click and drop to post your orders? As they have not mentioed this to me just yet, or do you have to use OBA for the collections?

Yeah i was under the impression they were free also if you spend over a certain ammount, it looks like this is being setup currently for me

 

[JamieM]

You can have two click and drop accounts. One where you pay up front like you are using now and one that you link to your OBA account.