Royal Mail have stopped free collections from home.

[vintagechinashop]

I haven’t been doing my postage today for items sold over the weekend and notice that Royal Mail have very sneakily introduced a charge of 30p per parcel for a home collection. Has anyone else noticed this. I must have had my head under a rock for a while because I’m sure I never saw this publicised 

oh well my buyers will have to take some of this now because my nearest drop off is 10 mile away so the cost of fuel and postage will probably still make the 30p viable. Especially with the rate of sales at the moment 

[crg_music]

If I remember right Royal Mail own the tracked 24/48 where Post office own the others. Im sure originally the tracked were business services and the post office would charge to accept them. Its confusing.

[santlache_sales]

Thank you, I'll try that in future.

Regards

[rainbow*40]

I had RM collections when they were free and my postmen always scanned every parcel I gave them - including the standard ones.

[crg_music]

Probably but its probably at his discretion now hence he wont scan them. Annoyingly mine has been told he cant take any that are not booked now so will be tracked 48 only unless its an expensive overseas tracked worth paying for and rest in postbox with fingers crossed. If I need proof of postage now I ether have to book or take to post office or pay a bit more for tracked.

[wyntersemporium]

There’s no inpost lockers anywhere in my area so I get mine collected as in pain most days due to a work injury. 
RM take all my mail took 15 on Tuesday. This also included Depop mail. On occasions my sister took all of to post office. 

[wyntersemporium]

Mines £2.70 tracked plus 30p RM there is no inpost anywhere near me. 
And get it collected. 

[wyntersemporium]

And mine is they collect all mine. I don’t mind paying 30p as it costs that in getting a taxi at £6.00 =£12.00 there and back. 

[wyntersemporium]

Are you sure my postie scans both tracked and ordinary second class 

[wyntersemporium]

They still do scan all my mail plus tracked and ordinary second class mail 

[gemini-project]

They have started charging 30p on my business account since last weekend, i spoke to the postman that normally collects them and he told me collections had reduced dramatically this week, i only ever had them collected on Monday due to the weekend sales but took them to the post office myself. 

It wasn't that long a go they charged you 15p if you took them to the post office forcing people to have them collected.

[myretrostore-uk]

Is anyone having problems with the RM mobile app. I've used it once to scan large letters for proof of postage before posting them. Now for the past 4 days the app is broken. Says unable to process due to high demand which is absolute rubbish as I even tried at 4am and it gives the same error. 

So now we can't even use the app anymore and have to either go to the post office or pay over 30p.

If I was wearing my tin foil had I would think RM are doing this on purpose as too many people are using the app to do proof of postage and they are loosing 30p each time. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

By losing 30p, I presume that you are talking about the payment for collections.

I am pretty sure, that even when you pay the 30p, they are still losing money on it.

They wanted to charge a fair bit more and if you compare what it costs to other couriers, you will see that the 30p is extremely cheap!

Frankly however, unless your using a tracked service, the proof postage is meaningless.

Without proof of delivery, then a claim won't be upheld.

And proof of postage is not required for proof of delivery.

So why bother?

[myretrostore-uk]

Proof of postage is for when RM lose the large letter. Without the proof of postage I can't claim from RM

[br_578958]

Yes , they have stopped collecting  from homes free of charge. Seems to be since they were sold again. They have also cut  down postpersons in rural areas from two to one on delivers. 

[comrie-antique-books]

Hi

You can still get free collection through either Ebay or parcel delivery companies like parcel2go. They have Royal Mail Business accounts so 20,000+ sales they get free postage. They're all making money of it, being they get cheaper Royal Mail postage prices. The only problem is Ebay only uses thermal label layouts rather than S19 format, I normally use in Click and Drop. 

[forestfeline62]

Yes, Royal Mail charges 30 pence per parcel for home collection, in addition to standard postage costs. This was previously a 72p charge but was reduced to 30p to encourage more people to use the service. You can arrange a collection for up to five parcels per day, excluding Sundays, as long as they meet the size and weight restrictions, according to Royal Mail. 

[6989aea]

Not true. Go to your RM email confirmation and towards the bottom click on "view your collection" and then click "amend" which will allow you to change the collection date. There is no fee when already booked through eBay. Not yet anyway.

[blackpoodleretro]

Surely to “amend a collection” you must have arranged a collection? How do you arrange a collection without paying 30p?

Sent from my iPhone

[6989aea]

I was responding to a seller who was already selecting a Royal Mail collection service when buying postage through eBay where there is currently no additional 30p charge. The problem they had was that the cut off time for booking next day collection is several hours earlier on eBay than that on the Royal Mail website.  This can be amended after booking as I described.

[storage.boutique]

What you have is a personal or low volume click and drop account. This is for low volume sellers. As it is low volume, it makes total sense that the Royal Mail should charge for collection. On the basis that you are low volume, if you were not sending parcels, you can use eBay labels and ram your large letters in to the local post box. If your volume increases they will soon make it known that they want you to increase your account level. 

From your listings, you have a business that sends parcels. Therefore, you need to apply to the Royal Mail for an Online Business Account (OBA). This then upgrades your Click and Drop account. Make sure you tell them that you are sending more than 1,000 TRACKED parcels per year. If you are VAT registered then the cost of tracked services is not much different to untracked, and the prices you will get through your OBA will be averaged and should be significantly cheaper than what you are paying now. It si well worth this extra step, but be warned it does not always go smoothly. Once it is set up, daily collections to your address are free and you can choose one of three set times to have your mail collected.

With the volume of sales you are showing, you cannot be a Private Seller, so I would think you should start this process to get an OBA as soon as possible. If for any reason you are a Private Seller on eBay, therein lies the reason why you are paying so much more in costs. Either way, someone gets you.