Royal Mail Online Business Account (Click & Drop) – Cheaper Business Mail
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Do you run an online business and sell through eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Shopify etc and have to send out orders on a regular basis? Are you tired of having to stand at your local Post Office in a queue waiting to be served in order to get proof of postage?
Well, if you send enough parcels you don’t have to do that anymore, and you can even get better postage discounts saving you money.
How do I Qualify for a Royal Mail Online Business Account?
If you send on average 20 parcels per week, you can quality for a Royal Mail Online Business Account. Which is great if you run your own business or a marketplace seller especially as it will save you money as well time and effort. Using your Royal Mail Online Business is really easy and integrates with a number of online marketplaces.
What are the Benefits of a Royal Mail Online Business Account?
1. You get discounts from anything from letters to small/large parcels. The discounts quickly add up and over a month you will definitely see an improvement on your postage costs.
2. You can be invoiced on a monthly basis. Great if you suffer from cash flow problems and allows you to monitor postage expenditure on a daily basis. Royal Mail will charge you on a monthly basis by Direct debit.
3. You put all your mail into a mail bag and hand it over to your local Post Office without having to wait in a queue saving you time and effort.
4. Royal Mail’s Click & Drop integrates into a number of online marketplaces including eBay, Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, Magneto etc (see full list below). This means you don’t need to enter your orders manually as these appear automatically in Click & Drop. This allows you to generate your postage labels in no more than a few seconds.
5. You can automatically print your postage labels in batches, freeing your time up to focus on more important aspects of your business.
6. Click & Drop will automatically remember the postage weight for the products that you sell. This means you only need to enter the weight for an item once and it will remember it for any future orders.
7. The tracking details for your orders are updated automatically on your online marketplaces (eBay, Amazon etc) once your order has been manifested after each day. From the Click & Drop it is also easy being able to track when your order has arrived.
8. You can also get free weekday collections if you spend over £15,000 a year. If you fall under this, there will be an additional cost.
9. Get free mail supplies. That’s right, you can order mail supplies from the Royal Mail’s site if you have an OBA. You can order anything from, mail bags, mailbag ties, thermal label rolls etc
How to Sign-Up to a Royal Mail Online Business Account (Click & Drop)?
You will need to contact Royal Mail directly in order to register your interest in setting up an OBA account. You can do this from their site: Royal Mail.
Fill in their form and a Royal Mail representative will call you up a few days later to see if you’re eligible. If you are, you will assigned an account manager. They will then send you some forms to complete where you will need to enter details of your business including account details so that you can pay for your postage.
Once they have opened your OBA account, they will send you some mail supplies including mail bags, mailbag ties etc
Integrating Your Online Marketplace to Your Click & Drop Account
One of the great aspects of Click & Drop is it integrates into a number of online marketplaces so that your orders feed automatically into Click & Drop allowing you to generate shipping labels quickly and efficiently.
Once your Click & Drop account has been set-up, you will need to connect it to your online marketplace.
See the below steps on how to configure Click & Drop with the relevant online marketplaces:
Amazon
How to Configure a Royal Mail Online Business Account with Amazon
eBay
How to Configure a Royal Mail Online Business Account with eBay
Shopify
How to Configure a Royal Mail Online Business Account with Shopify
Etsy
How to Configure a Royal Mail Online Business Account with Etsy
WooCommerce
How to Configure a Royal Mail Online Business Account with WooCommerce
Magneto
How to Configure a Royal Mail Online Business Account with Magneto
BigCommerce
How to Configure a Royal Mail Online Business Account with BigCommerce
How Does Click & Drop Work?
Processing an New Order (When Click & Drop is Integrated into Marketplace (Amazon/Etsy/eBay/Shopify/WooCommerce/Magento/BigCommerce))
1. Log into the Royal Mail Click & Drop account, enter your corresponding email address and password.
2. From the dashboard, if there are any new orders it will show up as “<number of orders> New Orders”. If there are, click on this.
3. From the ‘Orders’ screen, enter the weight and select whether it’s a Letter, Large Letter or Parcel. Next select the type of service you would like to use i.e. Royal Mail 2nd Class, Royal Mail 2nd Class Signed For etc. Finally click on the Apply & generate labels button.
4. Print the postage label off and attach it to your parcel/letter.
5. Put your parcel/letter into the relevant mail sack i.e. you should use separate one for the type of item it is i.e. letter, larger letter, parcel and the service you’ve selected i.e. 2nd Class, 1st Class etc. For example, all small parcels that are being sent should go in one sack. While all Small Parcels being sent 1st Class should go in another mail bag.
Processing a New Order When Click & Drop (When Orders Don’t Feed in Automatically)
1. Log into the Royal Mail Click & Drop account, enter your corresponding email address and password.
2. Select ‘Orders’ from the top menu and select ‘Create Order’.
3. From the ‘Create Order’ window, enter the customers address, order value and order reference if required. Next click on ‘Create order and apply postage’.
4. From the ‘Orders’ screen, enter the weight and select whether it’s a Letter, Large Letter or Parcel. Next select the type of service you would like to use i.e. Royal Mail 2nd Class, Royal Mail 2nd Class Signed For etc. Finally click on the Apply & generate labels button.
5. Print the postage label off and attach it to your parcel/letter.
6. Put your parcel/letter into the relevant mail sack i.e. you should use separate one for the type of item it is i.e. letter, larger letter, parcel and the service you’ve selected i.e. 2nd Class, 1st Class etc. For example, all small parcels that are being sent should go in one sack. While all Small Parcels being sent 1st Class should go in another mail bag.
How to Manifest Your Daily Orders
Before you go to the Post Office with your mail, you will need to manifest all your orders. After manifesting your orders, you will need to take the generated manifest document with the mail sacks and drop these off at your local Royal Mail branch.
See the below steps how to do this:
1. Log into the Royal Mail Click & Drop account, enter your corresponding email address and password.
2. Next select go to ‘Orders’ and select all ones with the status as Label Generated or Dispatched by clicking on the far right button so they are ticked.
3. Depending on your contract with Royal Mail, you may receive OBA discounts if you send a number or orders so it’s important that you manifest groups of orders in one go instead of individually. In order to do this, select ‘Manifest’ from the drop-down box at the bottom of the screen and then click on the ‘Go’
4. Next from the ‘Orders / Batch History’ screen select all the items and click on ‘Manifest Batch’ from the next screen. Select ‘Yes’ when the ‘I confirm that I am not sending anything which is prohibited or restricted in the UK or overseas’ pop-up appears.
5. Open the manifest file which is in PDF format and print it off.
6. On the printed manifest document, take a note of the OBA sales number which appears as Order Number: <number> in the document. Add the order number to the relevant PPI label (green PPI labels are for 2nd Class, red PPI labels are for 1st Class) in the Docket No section and add your PPI licence number and Posting Location Number in the Poster section. Next tick whether it is a Letter, Large Letter or Packet in the PPI label and enter the Total Number of Bags.
7. Finally attach the PPI label to the relevant mail sack/s with the cable ties.
8. Finally deliver the mail sacks with your generated manifest document to your local Royal Mail branch.
Thermal Printers
You could use an inkjet/laser printer to print off your postage labels and then attach them to your parcels with cello tape although there is a more efficient way of doing this.
You could instead use a thermal printer. Not only do they not use ink so don’t waste money on costly ink, the labels are sticky so you can attach them to your parcels without needing cello tape.
Thermal printers are also less likely to go wrong as they have less moving parts. We would definitely recommend the Dymo LabelWritter 4XL which allows you to print off large shipping labels and you can use them to print off your FNSKU labels if you sell through Amazon.
