If you're sending a parcel, Royal Mail will now collect it from your doorstep.

[worraliberty]

Some of you may know this already (in which case ignore me) but Royal Mail can now collect parcels from your doorstep instead of you having to take them to the Post Office. They'll even print and bring the label to you if you need them to.

I've just had a leaflet through the door so thought I'd share. There are very few Post Offices left around my way and the queue during my work lunch break is often enormous.

Link here

@Jalisco to be fair our postman is pretty awesome so I do imagine it vastly varies like all of these types of services

I’ve used the service twice. First time all great, they arrived about an hour into the 4 hour collection window. Second time I sat in waiting for them for the entire 4 hours, no updates and no sign of them. Waited another half hour and still no sign so I took it to a drop off location instead. An hour after that (so hour and a half after latest collection time), I get an email saying that they tried to collect but I wasn't at home.

They need to provide more updates on timings and also a way to allow you to cancel the collection.

Realistically with the time slots thing it's meant to take say 4 hours to do the run and that's why you get the window. But rm head office don't take into account that the postie might have loads of letters for the first part of the route or loads of 1pm special deliveries all over the route and have to cut off time wise to go deliver them and that's what the main difference is between rm and other delivery companies, they don't have the possibility of a bulk posting like Rm do.

@BlanketsBanned - I might be misunderstanding but don’t you just enter the number on the postage from the company and don’t need to buy a new label ( or
do you mean the label from
the company isn’t postage paid so you are paying for tracked postage not just collection?)

That's great news because the post office in my village has just shut down and there isn't another one for 10 miles.

I tried this once and they didn't arrive. I won't bother again, as there was a specific reason I did it, so won't need to.

It was piloted in some parts of the country in 2020. It's now being rolled out nationally, so whilst it wasn't available where you are in other places it was.

I've used this during Lockdown which was a great idea in principle but there's no proof of postage. As a result I got scammed by an eBay buyer.

I've been using it for ebay sales for over a year now - it works really well most of the time but was a bit glitchy just after Christmas when the local sorting office had a big outbreak of Covid cases and were short staffed. Its brilliant for ebay as they scan the bar code when they collect and email you to confirm collection so you have proof of postage and tracking to delivery.

you can do exactly this.

For letters, large letters, small packages and all the rest.
Print the label, glue it on envelope and stick in any random post box, of get collected (60p) or take it into post office and drop off for proof of posting.

@steppemum sorry, I should have said that I want to do it without having to print off a label, because I don't have a printer. Like if the site could give me a code to write on the letter or something like that.

I’ve used Click and Drop for some time (print the label at home and take to PO or parcel drop box) but recently had 6 big parcels of outgrown children’s clothes to send to a cousin of a dd. Far too much to take to PO in one go, so I used the collect service (printed labels myself) for 60p per parcel.

Our usual postie collected them exactly as promised, while on his usual round. Brilliant service!

@Blurp, if you look at the Click and Drop website, you can have the label printed for you and the postie will bring it. The website is very easy to use, but you do need to be able to weigh and measure the parcel - costs go by weight and dimensions but the bands are wide, e.g. under 2 kg etc.
I just use my ancient kitchen scales for the weight.
.

We've had this available for at least the last year or so but I've never used it (I don't usually have a problem getting to POs and am not usually at home during the day for pickup). Seems like a good idea though, I do use the app to preprint labels now to speed up the PO visits. Also there is an industrial estate near us with a parcel box you can drop them into out of hours.

Yes they have. I run a business from home and used this service during lockdown because I was shielding. For a while it was free, its now 60p per item and you get a 2 hour timeslot

Ahh that makes perfect sense because reading the leaflet that came through my door, it does look like a new service, so it's obviously just new to my area (and others).