Online Royal Mail

Amid the hoo-ha surrounding the launch of Royal Mail’s new web postage service, a couple of salient facts were buried. And these are of interest to the small and micro-sized business.

For £4.99 per month, businesses can add their own company logo to their barcode postage. But to be part of this new postage revolution you need to have Adobe Reader installed. Not a biggie in itself, but have it ready in place before trying to use the service as this will certainly make life easier.

The other detail to remember is that recorded delivery items and mail requiring proof of postage will still have to be taken along to the post office just the same.

In case you did manage to miss the Royal Mail ‘webmail’ launch, the service lets users buy and print their own postage stamps online. Customers pay for postage by credit card over the internet for first-class, second-class, recorded, special and international deliveries.

Each item of mail is given a barcode, which can be printed off from a PC or Mac, and regular mail can then be posted in a post box. The service is free; users just pay the normal postage price.

The postage and an address can be printed directly onto labels, envelopes or paper. Integrated with a price finder, the new postage service could make standing in a queue at the post office a much rarer occurrence.