Royal Mail Barcodes

[SarahT]

Has anyone else received notification that they will soon need to barcode all of the mail they send through RM?

I've just come back from hols and have had a letter, voicemail and email from RM about it.

im going to call them this week to find out what it's all about as it just seems like extra money, time and hassle to me but would be interested to know whether others have received notification / know about how it will work and how it's going to integrate with BP despatch manager

thanks

[Pelenna]

I've had this letter as well, going to have to contact them to see what it means for the oba - will post back with any info.

[R.O.T.]

We've had this letter too. It seems that DMO doesn't work on Apple Macs. So are we expected to buy new computers?

This could well be the final straw for us with Royal Mail, over the last few years the amount we send by Royal Mail has got less and less as couriers have got more competitive with smaller items. If we've got to buy new computers and thermal label printers to use their systems and waste time typing addresses into DMO we may aswell use our usual couriers.

[KayJay]

If you are on RMDMO they supply the labels, although you do need a thermal printer. We import a csv file into RMDMO to save on manually typing details in.

[Earthrise]

Any chance you could share the details of the csv file KayJay? I think a lot of us are having so much trouble with it that we spend an hour or so every day inputting the orders into RMDMO manually

[KayJay]

Any chance you could share the details of the csv file KayJay? I think a lot of us are having so much trouble with it that we spend an hour or so every day inputting the orders into RMDMO manually

I use Linnworks to create my csv so the layout is different. Basically I went onto RMDMO's import layout wizard. I then exported from BP and mapped it onto RMDMO. To do that you tell it what column means what in order. If you have columns in your csv that are not relevant, you tell RMDMO to ignore it. It is quite easy to do. You simply click on the column names within the RMDMO Mapping area and use the FILLER bit for columns you want them to ignore.

One thing to note is that RMDMO doesn't combine rows, so you need to make sure your exported file has combined orders with more than one type of stock otherwise you will get a label for each stock type rather than order. Also, I set the number of items in my spreadsheet to be '1' as that means the number of parcels not the number of items within the parcel.

Not sure if it will help, but mine looks like this (where you see xxxx that is the filler)

"Recipient/ Tracked Returns","Recipient/ Tracked Returns Postcode","Reference","xxxxx","Recipient/ Tracked Returns Country Code","Service","Service Reference","Items","Recipient/ Tracked Returns Address line 1","Recipient/ Tracked Returns Address line 2","Recipient/ Tracked Returns Address line 3","Recipient/ Tracked Returns Post Town","Recipient/ Tracked Returns Complementary Name","Weight (kgs)","Service Format","xxxxx"

[Earthrise]

Thanks KayJay, I will have a play around with it

[amberpumpkin]

If you don't have or want to buy Linnworks - what will happen - is Bluepark going to resolve it? It all sounds like its going to be a real pain.

[R.O.T.]

You are right it is going to be a pain, but I don't think it's a Bluepark problem. All we can do is comply with the Royal Mail requirement or use another service.

Does anyone know if it will effect Large Letters?

[E111]

"I don't think it's a Bluepark problem"

It will become a Bluepark problem, along with the general lack of third party integrations.

We all know Bluepark is fantastic, but it has a small user base and none of the major third party integrators want to bother with it because it is so small and not viable to develop for.

The all singing all dancing API allows amazing opportunities which would allow BP and its customers to grow, but if BP don't encourage or pay for integrations then eventually the chance to grow will be lost.

Bluepark needs to take charge and either get some of the functionality added which small retailers cannot do on their own - even if there is an additional fee for the add-ons!

[greggrant]

There is another thread on this subject http://www.bluepark.co.uk/forums/sho...-Manger-Online

And I agree that BP does need to look at some third-party integrations.