From April this year Royal Mail will be rebranding their parcels service into just three options – Guaranteed, Tracked and Standard.
Royal Mail will reduce their offering to six outbound and two return services with easy to understand features. It’ll be easier for retailers and consumers to decide which service to use with a choice of Standard, Tracked and timed Guaranteed services
Guaranteed
There’ll be two main options – Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am and Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm.
New features coming will include SMS or email notifications to customers to increase first time delivery rates and there’ll also be a Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed Returns service introduced.
Tracked
There are two main tracked options – Royal Mail Tracked 24 (delivery aim next working day) and Tracked 48 (delivery aim 2-3 working days). Both services have the option of signature on delivery, email or SMS customer notifications (for which the fee will be lowered) and direct link integration from Despatch Manager Online to your order processing system.
The entry level for accessing Royal Mail Tracked has been reduced to just 1000 items per year, and there will also be a Royal Mail Tracked Returns service introduced.
Standard
Royal Mail 24 (delivery aim next working day) and Royal Mail 48 (delivery aim 2-3 working days) will be the standard parcels services accessed with PPI.
The entry level for accessing the services will be 1000 items per year with options to save money for higher volumes by pre-sorting parcels. Free collections will be available for retailers who spend more then £15,000 per annum.
You can find out more at www.royalmail123.com
16 Responses
Not one of the packages shown in the banner I would classify as a parcel. Nowhere in the blurb do RM tell you how parcels are classified or what the relative costs are. All very worrying for those who ship what I would call a “parcel”.
Will this affect those of us who don’t use a “business service” from Royal Mail?
Does this mean RM are doing away with “letter, large letter, and packets”?
it will be just a “parcel” ?
Very helpful of RM to include a website which according to the blurb “will be live on the 14th February 2013”. Doesn’t clarify matters much!
I’m not sure how this is going to work in conjunction with the proposed changes to ‘small packets’ and ‘standard parcels’?
Or, is this just for ‘business’ users using OBA?
Does that mean a totally different set of terms and rates for those of us still using Post Offices?
Oh dear lord, they are changing the layout of the PPI indica again, it now has the information duplicated 3 times instead of 2!
They only changed it in January!
https://royalmail123.com/infocentre_standardppi.html
I still can’t see any prices or size guidelines for the new services? Is there any more info out there?
They have to give 30 days notice when shafting you with price and format increases so expect news in a few weeks
But I suspect as they have changed the name of 1st and 2nd class the cost of those will shoot up y’know with the enhanced image of the product on offer (same service mind you)
Hi All
I have spoken to Royal Mail about this this afternoon. This change is for business services. Whilst they may claim that this is essentially a rebranding and streamlining exercise, it will mean some pretty major changes for those of us who use packetpost and our own despatch systems ie something other than Linnworks or Despatch Manager Online.
The distinction between packets and large letters will remain, but the Packetpost service will become 24 or 48 as opposed to 1st or 2nd class and there will new PPI artwork for those – with the 1st and 2nd class impressions remaining for standard letter. Also the next to useless Recorded service will be phased out so those of us still using it on occasion will need to use the tracked service.
There is no word on pricing as yet, and whilst an increase is expected, with the entry thresholds being reduced for the new services, we have been told that further discounts will be available for those of us who post in higher volumes in mitigation. We shall wait and see…
For the second year in a row, Royal Mail are re-defining their services (last time, it was the weight bands).
Is it possible they are doing this to circumvent the maximum price rises for small packets agreed with Ofcom last year ? Or is it just to enable them to cover up massive price increases by waffling about “improvements” ?
I also note that they have gone quiet about the supplementary invoices they said they’d send users of Tracked post who were on seasonal tariffs (reviewed annually) but had not hit the volume thresholds. My experience with that was that they excluded Scotland, Ireland, IOM etc, and any item over the originally stated average piece weight when they worked out what they thought you’d sent.
The sad thing is that their service levels have also dropped appallingly in terms of losses and late deliveries. They really should lose the “Royal” from their name, they gives the country a bad reputation !