Thanks for the comprehensive information. We've been trading for nearly 3 years using Drop and Go services at the post office, but now just moved to Click and Drop and OBA to try to streamline the process. Like you say, the post office can be "variable" in terms of quality and we had items sitting there overnight when they didn't have time to process them!
You have to prove that you do currently ship 1000 items per year or more or or sign a contract stating that this will happen or you pay a fine so a start-up does not seem like you have enough evidence to even get this type of account
Your videos are awesome I have managed to setup Business account with RM. My only concern now is printer. Is it worth buying RM printer with some sort of warranty or would you recommend a cheap Ebay printer? Your suggestion would be much appreciated. Thanks
Thanks, glad the videos have been helpful! Personally I'd just get a cheap 6 x 4 label printer on Amazon or eBay. As long as they print the labels, what more do you want :) I've used two budget ones since we started doing this and never had a single issue (although one did stop working after 3 years, but it only cost £39.99 so I can live with that haha). Up to you really though. Lots of cheapies on eBay and Amazon - just check the reviews before you buy. All the best with your business!
Thanks for the video, I've just signed up for an OBA account and I'm awaiting a callback to set it up. Do you have to have Royal Mail collect your letters/parcels you send via OBA? At the moment I'm just dropping them off in a postbox or post office - I see collection under £17k is quite expensive for OBA.
Depends on the service you use and how many items / how much spend but no you definitely don't *have* to have your mail collected. We take ours ours to our local Delivery Office and they take the mail in from there. You have to manifest it and sort it though.
Hi there thanks for the kind words, glad the video was useful. If you have that setup in your settings then yeah it'll mark as dispatched on the sales channel. :)
@@LeftoverVenison thanks for very quick response , sorry one more question, will it also be update the tracking number to the relevant channel automatically when it dispatched ? thanks
Been told that at the end of the month the old way of doing things is over so having to start using click and drop. To be honest RM information is lacking both online and on youtube. We didn't want to go on it as we are on oba and at the end of the day we count up our large letters/letters/packets etc and then oba those amounts..>We don't really know what size something is until it is packed but click and drop expect you to know before and when you have 50-100 orders a day it becomes a nightmare. One thing that got me was i have now integrated ebay with CD and it has imported the items...But the weight, size and type of post have not...Maybe I'm missing something. So a simple print lable (as ebay knows that information) becomes a job and a half because RMs systems integrations are rubbish. Why do I need to put this into RM when ebay knows all this. With 1500 listings all with variations, this is near impossible to do. Great video by the way. Glad someone is doing the job that RM cant be bothered to do.
Because the big customers will have an account manager, they make up 99% of Royal males profit so it doesn’t make sense to spend the amount of money they have to and making documentation
Can you please tell me how to link existing click and drop accounts with ObA i am trying not able to to that using click and drop for few months now i had OBA account not sure how to link it thanks
I'm pretty sure you can't link an existing click and drop account. You need to set up a new C&D account with the email address you used to register for OBA as far as I know. Drop your account manager an email and they should be able to give you full step by step instructions if you have any trouble
Your account manager should be assisting you with that in most cases when you set up the online business account they will usually consult you about all of this
Great video on integration with ebay , we have 2 ebay accounts which both use the same Click and Drop OBA account so is it possible to add both ebay accounts in the integration section?
QQ: my account on Business Click and drop is setup. I have printed test label but there is no price showing as how much postage would be. 2nd Question where do I drop off these parcels once I have printed C&D parcel ? thanks
Your account manager should have agreed prices with you when you set your account up - you should have been emailed a full pricing list for all the services on offer to you. If you haven't contact your account manager or the business team at RM. You need to manifest orders and then depending on what you have set up, Royal Mail either collect them or you sort, bag, tag them and post at a Customer Service Point or Post Office
Do you need to understand that when you are shipping things to the business? Unless you are posting things out that customers have an ordered like documents? You need to send them most cases in check out the customer selects the shipping service they want or you advertise it so you don’t have a choice whether to select the shipping service, you need to choose what customer? Therefore the prices are relevant because you need to do what the order says.
Hi Leftover Venison. I have successfully signed up for OBA and have done my first 2 days worth of manifests. What im confused about is all the service codes. Im using service codes BPL1, but mostly BPL2. This works out at 79p, i was paying 75p with no OBA just click and drop. Ive heard about the STL service codes, how do i know the prices and which service code do i need? i need second class services, standard all letter sizes. This has not been explained at all to me. I send anywhere from 40-140 letters/day. Ow i almost forgot, the BPL service codes im currently using, do however work out about 30p cheaper for my large letters which is great its just the small standard letters < 100g. Thanks again. Margaret
Yeah they've recently changed the pricing for BPL2. No idea why they've done this - it's a total rip off for business account users sadly. Lots has changed at RM OBA since I made this video a couple of years ago I'm afraid. You'd be best off speaking to your account manager regarding pricing of STL
@@margaretoriley9793 Just a thought but if you're sending volumes of up to 140 per day - I bet a different courier service would offer you a decent rate that'll include pick up. (If that suits your needs obviously). Royal Mail seems to be slowing going down the toilet. We've been using Yodel and DPD and getting a really competitive price (obv more than 75p per package - but they do come and get the mail and it's fully tracked - we do about 100-300 a day)
@LeftoverVenison thank you for the suggestion. Is there another courier that could match Royal Mail for letter's? As 95% of what i sell are letters and not packages.
Firstly the post office where i live have 2 ABSOLUTE dragons with the worst customer service skills known to mankind. Secondly, ive jusy registered with the OBA click and drop. I tried manifesting just 2 orders. What a nightmare, im linked to Ebay, but it did not take the order off the sold items on Ebay, so i accidentally paid for the postage twice. I sell approx 2,500 items a month and im not typing each customers address in for each one. Also the postage for a standard 2nd class letter was 79p which is 4p more than if i bought the royal mail postage from Ebay, i thought it was supposed to be cheaper. Im really confused about the process, they are ringing back in a few days, but i like to dispatch items sevwral times a day not just once. Have you any tips please im really struggling. Thank you
I steer well clear of the post office whenever possible! I just take my mail to a Royal Mail Customer Service Point (or at least I did - we have it collected now). re: 2nd Class Post - Yes, they've done this during their last update - I have no clue why they think this is acceptable. An absolute joke. (Bear in mind this video is a few years old now). You can definitely integrate your OBA Click & Drop with your eBay account so the postage details come across and the items are marked as dispatched (if you set them to be) when you manifest orders. It takes a little bit of experimenting with the different settings but I'm sure you can sort it out :)
I have a click & drop account as a private seller, linked upto my shopify & ebay accounts, i've just signed up for OBA, do i need to setup a different click & drop account with my new (business) email address?
Been a while since I've done this and can't remember the exact process but yeah you can't use your private one for the OBA. You need to set up a new one and link it with your OBA account and use the email address you registered with Royal Mail when you set up the account. Your RM business account manager should be able to help sort any issues out.
@@LeftoverVenison Thankyou. I have the confirmation of my OBA but they have not completed setup of my DD yet (should be today) After spending hours trying to connect them both i have not yet received my account number, i hope when it gets setup it becomes easier, i've got the joys of trying to create a mandate to come yet 😂
Hello mate, thanks for the video. I now have a business click and drop account. Parcels, the tracking uploads. But for some reason my 2nd class letter and large letter delivery confirmation numbers are not uploading to ebay. Any ideas why and how to change this? This is half the reason why I set up a business account haha to stop getting INR cases for large letters.
By definition that cannot happen they are separate items and handled separately. They could be split up in delivery for instance if there’s not enough room on one lorry they could be put on different ones so they have to be different numbers for that purpose.
On Click & Drop go to SETTINGS, then INTEGRATIONS and uncheck the marked as dispatched on your eBay channel option. That way Click and Drop won't add the tracking or mark your items as dispatched on eBay. You'll have to manually mark as dispatched. No idea about the desktop integration I'm afraid, never used it.
Because they need to scan the manifest so they can add it to your bill at the end of the month. If you just post it in a post box, the postage isn't valid as they haven't accepted the mail via manifest. Also, a big part of the OBA system is that you pre sort your mail prior to presenting to Royal Mail.
You technically could, but they are likely to be quite annoyed at you and potentially withdraw your access or issue fines. This is for businesses not the odd letter.
Any questions on integration or anything else?
Hi Thank you for the Video.
Was wondering why my woocommerce 'processing' orders won't download into click and drop..
@@Mchiratcu Hey, thanks for your message - unfortunately, I have never used woo commerce myself so am not familiar with the process.
what label printer are you using?
@@ogazi01 we use: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234084098893?ViewItem=&item=234084098893
How would I add multiple parcels to the same tracking number?
Thanks for the comprehensive information. We've been trading for nearly 3 years using Drop and Go services at the post office, but now just moved to Click and Drop and OBA to try to streamline the process. Like you say, the post office can be "variable" in terms of quality and we had items sitting there overnight when they didn't have time to process them!
This is so helpful, thank you! Do the tracking numbers for RM24/48 upload automatically when they're marked as dispatched?
Thank you for the info. is it advisable to use OBA Click and drop for a start up online seller?
I would say definitely. You'll save a bit of money on postage and get access to some decent services.
You have to prove that you do currently ship 1000 items per year or more or or sign a contract stating that this will happen or you pay a fine so a start-up does not seem like you have enough evidence to even get this type of account
Can you use Sumup?
Your videos are awesome I have managed to setup Business account with RM. My only concern now is printer. Is it worth buying RM printer with some sort of warranty or would you recommend a cheap Ebay printer? Your suggestion would be much appreciated. Thanks
Thanks, glad the videos have been helpful! Personally I'd just get a cheap 6 x 4 label printer on Amazon or eBay. As long as they print the labels, what more do you want :)
I've used two budget ones since we started doing this and never had a single issue (although one did stop working after 3 years, but it only cost £39.99 so I can live with that haha).
Up to you really though. Lots of cheapies on eBay and Amazon - just check the reviews before you buy.
All the best with your business!
Thanks for the video, I've just signed up for an OBA account and I'm awaiting a callback to set it up.
Do you have to have Royal Mail collect your letters/parcels you send via OBA? At the moment I'm just dropping them off in a postbox or post office - I see collection under £17k is quite expensive for OBA.
Depends on the service you use and how many items / how much spend but no you definitely don't *have* to have your mail collected. We take ours ours to our local Delivery Office and they take the mail in from there. You have to manifest it and sort it though.
Thanks for lovely Video , very clear . just quick question so when we menifest the order , it will automatically dispatched on to relevant .. ?
Hi there thanks for the kind words, glad the video was useful. If you have that setup in your settings then yeah it'll mark as dispatched on the sales channel. :)
@@LeftoverVenison thanks for very quick response , sorry one more question, will it also be update the tracking number to the relevant channel automatically when it dispatched ? thanks
Been told that at the end of the month the old way of doing things is over so having to start using click and drop. To be honest RM information is lacking both online and on youtube. We didn't want to go on it as we are on oba and at the end of the day we count up our large letters/letters/packets etc and then oba those amounts..>We don't really know what size something is until it is packed but click and drop expect you to know before and when you have 50-100 orders a day it becomes a nightmare.
One thing that got me was i have now integrated ebay with CD and it has imported the items...But the weight, size and type of post have not...Maybe I'm missing something. So a simple print lable (as ebay knows that information) becomes a job and a half because RMs systems integrations are rubbish. Why do I need to put this into RM when ebay knows all this. With 1500 listings all with variations, this is near impossible to do.
Great video by the way. Glad someone is doing the job that RM cant be bothered to do.
Because the big customers will have an account manager, they make up 99% of Royal males profit so it doesn’t make sense to spend the amount of money they have to and making documentation
Can you please tell me how to link existing click and drop accounts with ObA i am trying not able to to that using click and drop for few months now i had OBA account not sure how to link it thanks
I'm pretty sure you can't link an existing click and drop account. You need to set up a new C&D account with the email address you used to register for OBA as far as I know. Drop your account manager an email and they should be able to give you full step by step instructions if you have any trouble
Your account manager should be assisting you with that in most cases when you set up the online business account they will usually consult you about all of this
Great video on integration with ebay , we have 2 ebay accounts which both use the same Click and Drop OBA account so is it possible to add both ebay accounts in the integration section?
Yeah you definitely can, we also have 2 eBay accounts linked to ours
QQ: my account on Business Click and drop is setup. I have printed test label but there is no price showing as how much postage would be. 2nd Question where do I drop off these parcels once I have printed C&D parcel ? thanks
Your account manager should have agreed prices with you when you set your account up - you should have been emailed a full pricing list for all the services on offer to you. If you haven't contact your account manager or the business team at RM.
You need to manifest orders and then depending on what you have set up, Royal Mail either collect them or you sort, bag, tag them and post at a Customer Service Point or Post Office
Do you need to understand that when you are shipping things to the business? Unless you are posting things out that customers have an ordered like documents? You need to send them most cases in check out the customer selects the shipping service they want or you advertise it so you don’t have a choice whether to select the shipping service, you need to choose what customer? Therefore the prices are relevant because you need to do what the order says.
Hi Leftover Venison. I have successfully signed up for OBA and have done my first 2 days worth of manifests. What im confused about is all the service codes. Im using service codes BPL1, but mostly BPL2. This works out at 79p, i was paying 75p with no OBA just click and drop. Ive heard about the STL service codes, how do i know the prices and which service code do i need? i need second class services, standard all letter sizes. This has not been explained at all to me. I send anywhere from 40-140 letters/day. Ow i almost forgot, the BPL service codes im currently using, do however work out about 30p cheaper for my large letters which is great its just the small standard letters < 100g. Thanks again. Margaret
Yeah they've recently changed the pricing for BPL2. No idea why they've done this - it's a total rip off for business account users sadly. Lots has changed at RM OBA since I made this video a couple of years ago I'm afraid. You'd be best off speaking to your account manager regarding pricing of STL
Thank you, I did ring the helpline, they did not explain things very well but she suggested that I use STL service codes instead
@@margaretoriley9793 Just a thought but if you're sending volumes of up to 140 per day - I bet a different courier service would offer you a decent rate that'll include pick up. (If that suits your needs obviously). Royal Mail seems to be slowing going down the toilet. We've been using Yodel and DPD and getting a really competitive price (obv more than 75p per package - but they do come and get the mail and it's fully tracked - we do about 100-300 a day)
@LeftoverVenison thank you for the suggestion. Is there another courier that could match Royal Mail for letter's? As 95% of what i sell are letters and not packages.
@@margaretoriley9793 Nobody else comes close unfortunately, which is why RM can pretty do what they like with the pricing of their letter mail
Firstly the post office where i live have 2 ABSOLUTE dragons with the worst customer service skills known to mankind.
Secondly, ive jusy registered with the OBA click and drop. I tried manifesting just 2 orders. What a nightmare, im linked to Ebay, but it did not take the order off the sold items on Ebay, so i accidentally paid for the postage twice. I sell approx 2,500 items a month and im not typing each customers address in for each one. Also the postage for a standard 2nd class letter was 79p which is 4p more than if i bought the royal mail postage from Ebay, i thought it was supposed to be cheaper. Im really confused about the process, they are ringing back in a few days, but i like to dispatch items sevwral times a day not just once. Have you any tips please im really struggling. Thank you
I steer well clear of the post office whenever possible! I just take my mail to a Royal Mail Customer Service Point (or at least I did - we have it collected now).
re: 2nd Class Post - Yes, they've done this during their last update - I have no clue why they think this is acceptable. An absolute joke. (Bear in mind this video is a few years old now).
You can definitely integrate your OBA Click & Drop with your eBay account so the postage details come across and the items are marked as dispatched (if you set them to be) when you manifest orders.
It takes a little bit of experimenting with the different settings but I'm sure you can sort it out :)
Thank you@@LeftoverVenison
I have a click & drop account as a private seller, linked upto my shopify & ebay accounts, i've just signed up for OBA, do i need to setup a different click & drop account with my new (business) email address?
Been a while since I've done this and can't remember the exact process but yeah you can't use your private one for the OBA. You need to set up a new one and link it with your OBA account and use the email address you registered with Royal Mail when you set up the account. Your RM business account manager should be able to help sort any issues out.
@@LeftoverVenison Thankyou. I have the confirmation of my OBA but they have not completed setup of my DD yet (should be today) After spending hours trying to connect them both i have not yet received my account number, i hope when it gets setup it becomes easier, i've got the joys of trying to create a mandate to come yet 😂
Hello mate, thanks for the video. I now have a business click and drop account. Parcels, the tracking uploads. But for some reason my 2nd class letter and large letter delivery confirmation numbers are not uploading to ebay. Any ideas why and how to change this? This is half the reason why I set up a business account haha to stop getting INR cases for large letters.
I'm not sure mate - have you checked you're integrated with eBay fully?
How would I add multiple parcels to the same tracking number?
By definition that cannot happen they are separate items and handled separately. They could be split up in delivery for instance if there’s not enough room on one lorry they could be put on different ones so they have to be different numbers for that purpose.
We dont want Royal Mail to fill up tracking in ebay. Can you tell us what is desktop integration ?
On Click & Drop go to SETTINGS, then INTEGRATIONS and uncheck the marked as dispatched on your eBay channel option. That way Click and Drop won't add the tracking or mark your items as dispatched on eBay. You'll have to manually mark as dispatched. No idea about the desktop integration I'm afraid, never used it.
@@LeftoverVenison thanks a ton! I knew that already... any documentations for desktop integrations? May be a new content for you 😝
Why can't you just post them in a post box in the street?
Because they need to scan the manifest so they can add it to your bill at the end of the month. If you just post it in a post box, the postage isn't valid as they haven't accepted the mail via manifest. Also, a big part of the OBA system is that you pre sort your mail prior to presenting to Royal Mail.
You technically could, but they are likely to be quite annoyed at you and potentially withdraw your access or issue fines. This is for businesses not the odd letter.