Franking machines for postage

[purpledragon]

hot tip when ur franking machine runs out of ink take old cart out tell machine replce cart put old cart back it sees it as a new cart , now we did this and carried on using old cart for 6 months daily (and we post a lot) before it eventually ran out

[pisquee]

I had looked at this for posting out my sales, and the savings were significant for first class packets (rather than letters), but since first looking at the idea when it would have saved me money, I have moved to sending everything out either recorded or special delivery, and the savings on these services aren't so much, and you then still have to queue to get the parcels in the system.

[Paul]

hot tip when ur franking machine runs out of ink take old cart out tell machine replce cart put old cart back it sees it as a new cart , now we did this and carried on using old cart for 6 months daily (and we post a lot) before it eventually ran out

Put it in the tips section buddy! it may save few quid!

[JSR]

Can you not just download your postage from Royal Mail site and print onto labels? I've done this before, very useful. Still have to deliver to Post Office but far quicker.

We do this, but for the last two months their website has been very erratic and slow. On a couple of occasions, the labels either haven't printed or the payment hasn't gone through. You're left with having paid twice until you get a refund on the failed postage (typically two weeks later). If you're sending special delivery or high priced postage or several parcels on the same order, that can work out to be an incredible inconvenience.

Their website has said this -

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with a number of our web pages which means they are, at times, operating much more slowly than we would normally expect. We are working hard to fix these problems. We would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience this is causing.

- since well before Christmas.

Before these problems, it worked fine. You can build up your address book so it's quick to do returning customers. You can create "favourite" postages (not available since the "problems" started), which makes it incredibly quick to redo similar postage to the same customer.

Until they get their "problems" fixed, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I don't know why it's taking them so long. They could be putting their postage up by 50% soon, according to recent news reports, and that'll probably kill all small businesses off.

[JSR]

I had looked at this for posting out my sales, and the savings were significant for first class packets (rather than letters), but since first looking at the idea when it would have saved me money, I have moved to sending everything out either recorded or special delivery, and the savings on these services aren't so much, and you then still have to queue to get the parcels in the system.

I was going to ask about that. Most of our parcels are recorded or special delivery too.

[mugstar]

I got a PB franking machine in November ish. Costs are as described above really, £15 a month rental & £6 per top, but as Martin says, just top up enough to lat you a couple of months (as long as you have the cash flow to pay for that up front).

It is an absolute god send!

£1.90 for a mug first class!!

[Mark Clayton]

£1.90 compared to £2.48 is an amazing saving.... I'm going to get one It will soon pay for itself. At a saving of 58p per mug posted the break even point is between 30 and 50 mugs per month depending on the rental cost + consumables + top up cost etc.... so its do-able.

[John G]

Is it £1.90 per mug, or is it £1.90 + the cost of an ink cart, servicing, labels, rental etc.

It would be interesting to find someone that has used this system for a few years and can give the pros, cons, and an accurate price per mug - compared to what the Franking machine rental company states in their blurb.

[bms]

Is it £1.90 per mug, or is it £1.90 + the cost of an ink cart, servicing, labels, rental etc.

It would be interesting to find someone that has used this system for a few years and can give the pros, cons, and an accurate price per mug - compared to what the Franking machine rental company states in their blurb.

£1.90 plus 0.5p for a label, probably another 0.5p for the ink cost (if you pay the high price for a cartridge after 3000 impressions), so £1.91. Servicing nil, rental depends on where you go, but could be around £20 a month.

Breakeven point depends on what you send (e.g. letters, large letters, packages and what they weigh). If you're just sending mugs and spending around £100 a month in postage then franking will save you money.

[John G]

That clarifies things a bit, so its the rental that would kill the price if you didn't send a min of around £100.00 per month - around 40 mugs, or 35 mugs and plenty of letters.