Royal Mail are to launch a new tracked service on 11th June this year. Named “Royal Mail Tracked” it is designed as a home delivery service to compete with courier companies. It will be a 2-3 day delivery service and will be suitable for sellers who regularly post items that fall into the new large letter and packet rates. Sellers will have to ship a minimum of 5000 parcels a year by the new service to qualify.
* The volumes you post on a daily and an annual basis
* The weight of your consignments ranging from 0-5kg
* Any pre-sortation you may wish to undertake
A sample profile of 5-19,000 parcels per year weighing up to 1kg, with 5% going to Scotish Highlands and Islands and 5% going to Northern Ireland and off shore Islands would cost £2.64 per packet. This is a considerable saving over Recorded Signed for services, with better tracking. With 50% of parcels in the highest 2-5kg band the price only rises to £3.85. These prices are very competitive in comparison to courier services such as ParcelForce.
Sellers will need to weigh up several factors before signing up for the new service however. Those with Royal Mail PPI accounts will already have discounted rates based on volume, using the new service could see their volume drop and rates rise. Similarly anyone switching from a courier account may see rates rise for heavier items due to a drop in the volume of items shipped.
For those who ship items weighing no more than 5kg and want a fully tracked and signed for 2-3 day service at competitive rates, Royal Mail Tracked will be ideal. In order to sign up for the service call 08457950950 or speak to your Royal Mail account manager.
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For the sake of comparison, the equivalent costs on the “up to 1kg” using PacketPost Second Class Recorded are £2.27 (that’s for an average of a 750g package) and for the “up to 5kg” using a mix of First and Second Class Recorded are approximately £4.13. It’s a close call between PacketPost and the new Tracked service.
Of course the fine detail of the new service will be important. Will it qualify for Paypal protection (I assume “yes” but do remember the difficulties with Recorded and Paypal when Royal Mail first went online).
Early adopters of the new service will be in for an interesting time.