Updated - Royal Mail Small Parcel Format 20th October 2014

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Not seen this mentioned on the forum yet, but RM are merging their 25x35x16cm and 35x45x8cm small parcel sizes, into one 35x45x16cm box for upto 2kg. Details say this is until 18/01/2015, so obviously to accommodate the Christmas presents demand.
Full details here:
http://www.royalmail.com/new-parcel-size

(Shame we recently bought 100 boxes for the 25x35x16cm size!)

[SciArtImages]

Wouldn't it be nice if Royal Mail actually planned ahead rather than just reacting to losing trade to other couriers (which was totally predictable). So this change will be 'till mid-Jan, then no doubt we'll be getting another format change at the start of April again! Beginning to think that Royal Mail have shares in every cardboard box manufacturer in the land!

Neil.

[ArferMo]

Very rare that I use RM for anything other than letters these days sooooooo much cheaper with one of the many couriers.

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We've recently set up an OBA (online business account) with RM, which sees us get small parcels on their 24 hour service (similar to 1st class) for £2.53 for 1kg rising to £3.61 for 2kg (as opposed to £3.20 and £5.45 for stamps) we then just put all our deliveries for the day in a RM sack and drop it off at the local sorting office.

[UK Printed Mugs]

Well I would be interested in which couriers you use if that's ok as I thought RM was the cheapest by far? We pay £2.45 for 2nd class packet (PPI account) up to 2kg which is very cheap I thought. Olly

[GoonerGary]

I had also thought of an OBA, as postal costs for mugs are so high. But when I consider the time taken to print out labels and travel across town to drop off the bag, I've got more productive things to do with my time like generate new income! Let the customer pay for the higher postage costs at the counter. So to save time, I'm going to open a Drop & Go account.

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We pre-print address labels with the logo etc for the postage, our branding and return address, and then just write on the address details. We can then drop the bags off at a post office (without having to wait in the queue) or the delivery/sorting office - we normally go to the delivery office as it is closer to us.
RM Business actually phoned us, as they saw us as a good potential brand to be working with, even though we weren't sure if we met the minimum use of 1000 units of postage a year, they are starting to want to work with businesses that they see will achieve that level at some point in the future.

[ArferMo]

@UK Printed Mugs......
Up to £20.00 FREE compensationMaximum Parcel Weight - 20 kg
Maximum Parcel Length - 0.64 m
Maximum Parcel Width - 0.41 m
Maximum Parcel Height - 0.38 m

Cost from 1Kg @ £1.91 inc VAT service is inPost from Parcel2Go.com

[GoonerGary]

and then just write on the address details.

I'm a copy and paste man, into notepad and print, no time for pens and writing! But I've got time for procrastinating on forums....

Oh is £2.53 a negotiated price or is that for everyone? If you can also drop at a post office then that's cool too.

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£2.53 is what they offered us for RM24, RM48 is £1.98 for upto 1kg - these are the inc VAT prices, so in reality we're paying £2.10 for RM24

You could set up a template to print the labels, so you could copy/paste still - OR - have the RM graphics and codes pre-printed on a load of labels to use like stamps, and then do your address labelling as you already do.
It is literally dropping off at the postoffice - we just drop them over the counter, no queue or needing to talk to anyone. Advantage for us of the delivery office, is if we time it right we drop the bag straight onto the van.
RM will send you all the stuff you need, labels, mail sacks, cable ties, etc and will talk you through the process over the phone first time you do it, check up on you to make sure everything's OK - I've been very impressed with how helpful they've been