Royal Mail Tracked ( & Signed ) 24 and 48 - Now available to General Public without a Business Account
I have mentioned this on a couple of other threads, but I think it is worth highlighting, especially in the current climate of postal delays and bad feedback and the other issues online sellers are now experiencing.
Royal Mail Tracked 24 and 48 and Royal Mail Tracked and Signed 24 and 48 are now available to " The General Public " without a Business Account of any kind ! You can simply buy online, there is no need to sign up to anything.
You can buy the services online here at Royal Mails new " Beta " site, which note, they say is going through developments and changes. Payment is by Card or Paypal. I’m finding Card glitchy, having better results with PayPal:
As to prices.
249 gram Large Letter, ie a typical DVD or CD, is
Tracked 48 - 3.60
Tracked and Signed 48 - 4.02
Tracked 24 - 4.44
Tracked and Signed 24 - 4.86
A 499 gram Small Parcel, ie a typical book, is
Tracked 48 - 4.74
Tracked and Signed 48 - 5.10
Tracked 24 - 5.46
Tracked and Signed 24 - 5.82
You CANNOT drop these off at a Post Office ( it’s a different company to Royal Mail ), they won’t scan them and they don’t recognise these products. So don’t waste your time.
Technically you are supposed to bring them to a Royal Mail Customer Service Desk, which is typically located in your local Delivery Office, Local Sorting Office, Depot, Mail Centre et al…
( Problem is, during this Pandemic, all Delivery Offices are only open for enquiries from 7 to 9 AM, Mon Tue Thur Fri and Sat, with horrendous queues of people calling for missed deliveries / something for you )
So to be honest, I have been sticking mine in Post Boxes. I appreciate they should get scanned, and all the insurance / claim issues that go with that, but in these times, we have to wing it. When possible, I’ve been sticking mine in Parcel Postboxes, in the hope that this means they are with Business Account Mail, and so more likely to get processed properly.
https://www.royalmail.com/d8/parcel-post-boxes
So far, despite delays, it’s all been working well.
I appreciate that it is not economically viable on a lot of items. I have actually sent some items at a cost greater than my cut after seller fees. However, right now, there are numerous horror stories of good sellers being ruined by bad feedback due to postal delays, and unreasonable customers, And Amazon encouraging customers to claim refunds for items that they have had ! And the Easter Bank Holiday postal fiasco.
So right now I am using this service just to get through the Coronavirus Pandemic and it’s effect on mail services.
At the very least, you do have fully tracked data, so can show a customer " its in the system somewhere " …
On some other Chat forums, I have read that Signed 24 gets prioritised like Signed For.
Finally, I have noticed, that unlike buying postage through Amazon, or the normal buy postage online, which has a deadline to post of the end of the next working day, these labels give you 7 days to use. This could be useful for returns in providing pre-paid labels to customers, as obviously, sending them one that needs to be used within around 24 hours is often unfeasible. This might be a better solution.
17 replies
Seller_amUAzjvL5uIzu
At those prices I’ll stick to 2nd class LL @ 88p,£1.40 or £2.70 signed for,most are getting there within a few days anyway & Ive had just 7 INR’s out of 1500 orders since lockdown.
Seller_vmXKMgVCpmLVt
What the hell is wrong with RM, have they lost the ability to add up or something.
Surely stopping to get a signature takes the same amount of labour no matter what service used… here however adding a signature to tracked 48 (250g), costs the lowly sum of 0.42p, same as tracked 24 for this size packet, jump to the small Parcel service, that same signature costs 0.36p, and the same for the 24 service.
Now go to your OBA price lists:
Code BPL large letter no track £1.10, with signature becomes BPR £2.40 (that’s an increase now of a whopping £1.30p for the same signature as the others), as against a small parcel with no tracking or signature of 500g £3.95, with that same signature £4.95, so £1 extra…
To me, after this Cov-19 mess ends I will be looking for alternatives to RM, as honestly this signed for crap is areal con by them.
Seller_Q3RVcJZLyOqK9
Sorry I just don’t get the logic.
I stopped using RM Years ago
My Hermes upto 1kg £2.90
Upto 1Kg Postable £2.45
Drop off at local collection point befoe lunchtime delivered day after tomorrow
No messing about going into town tp sorting office.
More importantly customers dont have to go to sorting office to collect if Postman can’t deliver.
Granted for larger sellers, there are huge cost advantages to using Royal Mail OBA.
But for smaller sellers who have to take their orders to the post office RM is a step back into the dark ages.
Seller_uSBqWAlkccs2f
Really useful information, thank you.
Seller_bIVNWAWuPbk3l
I’ve used the new Beta system and it works well in that you can add all your consignments and then checkout, rather than one at a time.
But I use the standard postal rates, stick to large letters and pop in my local post box about 200 yards away. Problem is collection is now a crazy 7:00am in the morning, so they never get collected until next day.
I think the tracked 24 & 48 are too high. The 48s are trumped by Hermes who may take a day longer but if you drop off before lunchtime will probably be same, and the 24s are trumped by DPD and others.
Seller_ka94fhfBAXtNr
Those tracked 24 & 48 prices are what i pay but mine are plus vat on top .
The only difference my business account mail gets collected.
Dont use much a month only for SFP as most of my orders go 2nd class.
2nd class large letter up to 100g i pay 79p ,website 88p . up to 250g i pay £1.05 ,website £1.40
but 2nd class parcel prices are near enough what i pay .
Dont send large amounts a month but average 200 and royal mail stated they might start charging for collection at some point then using a business account looks a bit worthless.
Seller_4AiP4mlfvzcri
Amazon are not recognising RM tracked 48 for INR claimed.
I have x2 in the last week - fully tracked door to door - both showing as delivered - both claims found for the recipient and both appeals denied.
So, if you think spending the extra money will give you more protection (which is what I thought), it doesn’t.
I will probably go back to royal mail 2nd class signed-for and save the extra money per item.
Seller_74ijaPS0pKj8Q
Seems more expensive than using normal signed for services.
I tried switching to hermes to save money but 2 weeks in 25% of parcels I sent were either delayed or lost by them and it was a real kerfuffle to claim, can’t get through on phone or chat. Switched back to RM and increased my prices to cover their continually rising costs.
Seller_74ijaPS0pKj8Q
Also just want to add I would strongly advise against posting through postbox as you have no proof of sending if you need to make a claim for loss or damage.
