From the end of September, we’ll start to see the end of orange Signed For labels on our letters and parcels. Royal Mail are to discontinue the Orange Flash labels for Royal Mail Signed For 24 and Royal Mail 48 items.
We are already seeing a significant reduction in use of the labels for two reasons. Firstly with the growth of Royal Mail’s Tracked 24 and Tracked 48 product sets there has been an overall reduction in the number of Royal Mail Signed For items. Secondly, if you print labels with the Signed For service rather than a Signed For sticker the service will be often be incorporated into the postage label.
With the modernisation of Royal Mail seeing the tracking number for Signed for items incorporated into shipping labels, all the orange flash label really does is to be a visual indicator for Posties and consumers that this is an important item. The reality is that with 80,000 handsets rolled out to Posties, they’ll not only be prompted to collect a signature but will collect it electronically and in today’s world the visual reminder is no longer as important.
Royal Mail will be removing the need to use the orange Royal Mail Signed For label from their Terms & Conditions on the 30th of September 2019 and removing the need for customers to apply it when using Royal Mail Signed For as an add-on to Royal Mail 24 and 48. This should help to save you time in parcel preparation and save a few trees in the process. As well as the carbon footprint reduction, eliminating the orange flash stickers will also reduce the cost of production and distribution from the postage service.
18 Responses
This article makes no sense.
If your printing the label yourself you don’t use the orange label anyway.
And if you use stamps or the post office you’ll use the label as standard.
So no change then, unless I’m missing something ?
Either way misleading click bait title title as the label isn’t been discontinued.
So as im using non barcoded rm 48 and 24…. how will they know? I know if i send anything signed for i put in a separate bag and it is recorded on the oba sheet… but without a label, the postie won’t know will they?
Am i missing something?
Oh goodie,as a postie yet another bar code to write out when leaving a docket and no more time to do it!(the orange ones peel off)
What happens to franked mail? As there’s no barcode on my franked signed for parcels, it just has a price increase
What happens to franked mail? As there’s no barcode on my franked signed for parcels, it just has a price increase
Seems most commenters missed the point of this. The orange flash labels in question dont have a barcode, they’re there as a visual indicator to the postie (and possibly equipment in the sorting office) that “hey this item requires a signature”.
The barcode requirement is satisfied by the label printed from proshipping. If you’re using your own labels (or I guess anything other than proshipping) then chances are you’re using the other orange signed-for stickers with their own barcodes on.
As a Postie I can confirm the orange labels do have a barcode ( in fact 2 ) and they can be peeled off. You already get the pre printed labels that are not orange that have the words signature required printed on them. If a signature is required regardless of label the PDA will not let you proceed without getting one when trying to deliver
Everything we deliver needs scanning these days..If the PDA shows a dot next to serial number it then needs a signature..Scan.scan.scan…Packet.packet…no wonder shops are closing when we deliver online goods…But please be home to receive…
The orange flash labels do have a barcode which is scannable into a PDA, a certain beep goes off and flags that a signature is required. It is a visual aid but RM policy is to scan EVERYTHING! QR codes, Barcodes and the little blue ones. So as much as I appreciate seeing the orange label it has no relevance on the delivery side… Unless the customer isn’t in… That means a hand written card is necessary, those 12 or so digits handwritten in the little squares… A peel off sticker is more accurate and quicker to process leaving forms… So that’s your answer. Hope it helps with your queries!
I will have to find out from Royal Mail as this artical appears to be confusing.
It repeated it’s heading a few times and by the time it reached to the detailed report it confused everyone.
Im so glad i no longer work as a postie all that scanning and writing cards out when theres not enough time to do your round without all the scanning i sympathise with all posties i did it for 39yrs and now its up there with the worst jobs so before you criticise your postie try and walk for 6 hours a day in all weathers
Guys, look at the image. The orange flash labels have no barcode. They are a reminder it is a Signed for item regardless of label used. Primarily alongside white pre printed barcoded labels
Relax. Nothing changes for your label/barcode set ups
I work in a Post Office, and so far there’s been no mention of this on a Horizon Memo or Branch Focus, so I’m a little perplexed. As it currently stands, people who frank their mail (businesses etc.) use an orange label which we scan on receipt, people who print the whole label (either direct or via eBay or whatever) don’t use an orange sticker (we scan the printed barcode when they drop it off), and if we print a label we use an orange sticker – even printed labels from Horizon don’t always produce a barcode, and for Signed For/Special it won’t produce the label until after the sticker has been scanned.
I think this article may have misunderstood something somewhere…
about time Royal mail focused on their labels and stickers etc
weve had a Royal mail business account for Decades
we have mountains of obsolete and defunct bag labels, stickers, labels, pouches etc etc etc in our mail room
it must needlessly cost royal mail a small fortune