Royal Mail STL Account

[BrightIdeas]

My ecommerce site launched 3 weeks ago and orders are looking promising. Still very low daily numbers, but feel positive that there will be an upward trend to see soon.

Currently sending orders through Royal Mail on 2nd class recorded and special delivery - parcels/packets are small/light. However, I am considering setting up a Royal Mail STL account. Using this service, I would print off postage online and will pay discounted rates for postage too.

There are qualifying limits (an annual spend of £5000, I believe) but I have been advised by a RM account manager that they will not penalise me for not hitting targets. I've also advised that if I don't find the service suitable, I can stop using the service without penalty.

So... my questions are:

What are the cons (if any) of this service?

How reliable is the service? (e.g. reliability of service when printing postage online, etc.).

Thoughts and comments much appreciated.

 

[BrightIdeas]

Stands for Standard Tarif Letters, which from what I understand, is their basic account level.

 

[Raw Rob]

Do you mean PPI? Where you print the "Postage Paid" labels?

If so, you print the labels yourself so no problem there.

The service is generally reliable, occasionally the web interface is slow or doesn't work at all, but I think that has improved a bit recently, and they have a manual system in place to keep things going when it does fail.

No cons as far as I am concerned, been using PPI for 2 years now, saves money, saves time, plus only invoiced once a month on 30 days terms so a lot less paperwork than with daily receipts from the Post Office.

Rob

 

[BrightIdeas]

It's called a STL account (Standard Tariff Letter). It's their basic account package which saves money on normal postings.

You use a PPI Hand stamp or your PPI can be downloaded onto your PC to stamp your packages as an alternative to normal stamps.

There is a qualifying amount of £5000 through the year for this product but this is also flexible for growing companies

Is this the same as the service that you use, Rob?

 

[alanc]

Royal Mail seem to use a variety of terms for the different aspects of their business and it's very confusing. I think that what both Rob and the OP are describing is an Online Business Account (OBA) that uses the Standard Tariff Letter as its rate of charging for postage. PPI is just RM's term for how the post is marked.

I've been using this for over a year now and its very good. One extra bonus is that the 'loss' rate has gone down enomously (from about 1 in 350 to 1 in 5000+). This is probably because the bags are sealed and weighed.

 

[paretowasright]

Royal Mail seem to use a variety of terms for the different aspects of their business and it's very confusing. I think that what both Rob and the OP are describing is an Online Business Account (OBA) that uses the Standard Tariff Letter as its rate of charging for postage. PPI is just RM's term for how the post is marked.

I've been using this for over a year now and its very good. One extra bonus is that the 'loss' rate has gone down enomously (from about 1 in 350 to 1 in 5000+). This is probably because the bags are sealed and weighed.

Very interested to see your experience on the loss rate as one of my clients is at approx 1 in 200 currently. The lost parcels are however polarised around 2 sorting office area's in the UK (both South East) but RM are of course in total denial of the local problems!

 

[North Wales Inks]

i have got aOnline Business Account (OBA) with royal mail and i find it very useful getting a invoiced once a month on 30 days terms

 

[BrightIdeas]

Great to hear comments about the service. Based on what's been said, I think I will go ahead with this. Thank you all!