How Royal Mail changes benefit eBay sellers

August 5, 2008

Last Monday Royal Mail added Post Code Verification for recorded delivery items when despatched at Post Offices around the country. Today Royal Mail spoke to TameBay giving some reasons for the changes and how they will benefit Royal Mail customers.

The change to the Recorded Signed for procedure is to provide full track and trace facilities from the point of sale to the delivery for customers. A key benefit is that shortly the details associated with each scan will soon be passed electronically to Royal Mail for end to end tracking. This will include the destination address, weight, value and barcode number.

For eBay sellers this means in the near future you will be able to provide buyers with tracking numbers with which they can confirm online that a specific Recorded Signed For item has been posted to them. This will be especially useful as a tool for increasing the despatch time DSR - it’s worth highlighting to buyers how quickly you posted their item even if it then takes a couple more days for it to be delivered.

Whilst usiness customers can use the Bulk Posting Certificate (PDF document) and Post Office counter staff will enter address details which will be printed on receipts for occasional users. Sellers who use online postage such as Smart Stamp can use the same manifest for their signed for items and no sellers will need to complete recorded delivery slips in the future.

An addition benefit is that the tracking information will also be available for use by Royal Mail customer services which will speed up the claims process in the rare event a parcel goes missing.

It’s been a week since the new procedure was implemented, for those who use the Post Office how has it affected you? Are you now using the Bulk Posting Certificate? Is it taking less, more or about the same time to process your parcels?

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Events, News | 13 Comments 

Royal Mail add postcode verification for recorded delivery

July 28, 2008

eBay sellers sending recorded delivery items will find the process has changed when they visit the Post Office today. As part of Royal Mail’s initiative to introduce better tracking to their services, Recorded Delivery items will undergo post code verification. This is a similar process to that for Special Delivery which was introduced in January of this year.

The Royal Mail are exceptionally good at delivering mail which has a typo in the address, sadly computers aren’t at all forgiving on address verification - it’s either right or it’s wrong. The Post Office queue is possibly the most frustrating point of the delivery process to discover a buyer’s mistake.

Postcode verification will slow posting time down considerably, although there is a bulk process with a Bulk Posting Certificate (PDF document).

You’ll need to print out and complete one of these for every ten parcels you post. It appears that if you use the Bulk Posting Certificate that the address verification is bypassed which will at least save some time.

The Bulk Posting Certificate isn’t an ideal solution, as well as the limit of ten items per sheet the time taken to complete it will slow mail preparation time down.

One other change is that Post Offices can no longer print more than 10 labels at a time for the bulk process. If you have 11 or more identical weight and size parcels it will mean Post Office counter staff have to go through the label printing process at least twice.

For eBay sellers who want to speed the process up in the short term there is a solution. Post Office counter staff have access to a bypass option - I’d highly recommend asking them to use it until such a time as you have a Bulk Posting Certificate process implemented.

As sellers visit their Post Office at the end of the today on their way home I’m guessing there’ll be a fair amount of frustration at no advance warning of the changes. If I’d known on Friday that a new system was to be implemented I’d have had the Bulk Posting Certificates ready to go instead of being faced with a new system at the Post Office Counter.

If you use Recorded Delivery and mail items at the Post Office let us know how you get on with the new procedure and how counter staff are coping with the changes.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Featured, News | 17 Comments