Royal Mail Tracked® Services

Tracked 24-hour service (Royal Mail Tracked Next Day^®): The minimum annual volume is 5,000 parcels per customer, per site, per annum.

Tracked 48-hour service (Royal Mail Tracked^®): The minimum annual annual volume is 2,000 parcels per customer, per site, per annum.

Yes, you can select an optional signature and/or text/email delivery notification parcel by parcel.

Yes, collection costs are included in the Royal Mail Tracked^® price unless you plan to send over 300,000 parcels per site per year using our 48 hour service. If so, we calculate the inclusive parcel price according to the distance between your site and our agreed depot.

If a price change is required we will advise you in writing 30 days before the change is put in place.

Parcels can be addressed to anywhere in the UK including Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man and BFPO (British Forces Post Office) addresses. If you are posting over 300,000 parcels a year on our 48-hour service you can send specific tracked permitted items, perfumes, nail varnish, aerosols and lithium batteries. However certain address and item specific restrictions will apply to these goods. Details of these are included in the Royal Mail Tracked Services Customer User Guide. See Details tab above.

Parcels addressed to Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man will be tracked up to acceptance into the territory.

Parcels addressed to a BFPO address will only be tracked up to handover to the BFPO UK address and must conform to BFPO addressing guidelines detailed on the BFPO website (new window). No Tracked Permitted Items can be sent to BFPO addresses.

You’d be surprised at the variety of things we’re asked to deliver. However, for legal and safety reasons, there are some parcels which we cannot allow to be sent by post. A list of these is available from your Royal Mail Sales Centre on 08457 950 950.

If you are posting over 300,000 parcels a year on our 48-hour service you can send specific tracked permitted items, perfumes, nail varnish, aerosols and lithium batteries.  However certain address and item specific restrictions will apply to these goods. Details of these are included in the Royal Mail Tracked Services Customer User Guide. See Details tab above.

Otherwise, all we ask is that your posted parcels remain within our size and weight limits.

Yes. Not only does Royal Mail Tracked^® have a number of attributes that can be added to the service such as signature on delivery and text/email delivery notification but you can also add two additional services: Safeplace™ and Local Collect Business™.

Safeplace™ - allows customers to nominate a ‘safe place’, where the parcel can be left it they are not at home when delivery is attempted.

Local Collect Business™ - allows customers to nominate a local Post Office^® where their parcel can be delivered for collection.

Yes. If you send at least 300,000 parcels a year on our 48-hour service you can send parcels weighing up to 20kg.

Size and weight restrictions are contained in our Royal Mail Tracked Services Customer User Guide. See Details tab above.

The price for Royal Mail Tracked^® is calculated according to your posting profile, which includes factors such as annual volumes, parcel weights, origin and destinations and in some instances size. To get an estimate based on your planned posting profile contact your account manager or call 08457 950 950.

You can pay for Royal Mail Tracked^® services via a credit account using a PPI (Printed Postage Impression).

Yes. Every parcel must bear a PPI indicia. Stamps, meter (franked) impressions and pre-paid postage payments cannot be used with Royal Mail Tracked^®. If you are using your own despatch system rather than Royal Mail’s own despatch management system, you can find out more from www.royalmail.com/ppi.

A combination of average parcel weight, annual/daily volumes and receiving location all determine the posting profile and hence the price you are charged for the service. If you are a seasonal poster you can provide us with a quarter by quarter planned posting profile to ensure your prices reflect your posting seasonality.

Tracked Next day has a delivery performance target of 95%, whilst the target for Tracked is 97.5%

Tracked 24-hour service (Royal Mail Tracked Next Day®): We aim to deliver your parcel within 24 hours with the following exceptions. Parcels addressed to the following postcodes JE, GY, IM, HS2, PA61-PA75, PA78, ZE2-3, KW16-17, PH30, PH41-PH44 should be delivered within two to three days.

Tracked 48-hour service (Royal Mail Tracked®): For customers posting over 300,000 parcels a year with our 48-hour service we aim to deliver your parcel within 48 hours with the following exceptions. Parcels addressed to the following postcodes HS, KW, ZE2, ZE3, JE, GY, and IM should be delivered within three days.

For customers posting less than 300,000 parcels a year on our 48-hour service we aim to deliver your parcel within two to three days.

Alternatively, if you need a guaranteed service you may wish to use our Special Delivery™ service.

If you would like to know more about the track status of your packet, use our Track & Trace facility.

You can find out if your parcel has been delivered by using our Track & Trace system. Simply enter your barcode reference number for the parcel and we'll trace your parcel, letting you know it has been delivered within minutes of its arrival.

The market value of the item up to a maximum of £50 is provided for loss or damage, subject to our standard terms.

For delay compensation or for enhanced loss/damage compensation you may wish to use our Special Delivery™ service.

Yes. If you use Royal Mail's despatch management system, the barcodes are automatically generated. If you use your own despatch management system then you will need to add barcodes using the formats we supply to you as part of the system set up process.

For each shipment you need:

• A barcoded label on each item
• A paper collection manifest
• OBA order summary report (only required for Despatch Express customers)
• Electronic pre-advice

If you use Royal Mail’s Despatch Express software it automatically transfers sales order information from Despatch Express to our Online Business Account (OBA) system.

This happens when you print off the ‘Collection Manifest’ on Despatch Express.

If you use Despatch Express you need to generate an ‘OBA order summary report’ that must accompany each shipment and be given to the collection driver. If you use your own despatch management system or Royal Mail Despatch Manager Online (RMDMO) (available from mid October 2010) items are billed automatically based upon parcels we have accepted and scanned so entries are not needed on OBA. In any event, you will need access to Royal Mail’s Sales Ordering System and our Online Business Account (OBA) to view Royal Mail Tracked^® sales orders raised. Our OBA sales ordering system is free and our representative will contact you to explain how to operate the system.

To help you start posting quickly we can arrange with a leading printer supplier to provide you with a Zebra GK420d 4.25 inch thermal label printer, ideal for stand alone applications (not networked) printing up to 5 inches per second. Connection is via a USB or serial RS232 connection.

For price details and to arrange the supply of a GK420d printer contact your account manager or call our Royal Mail Sales Centre on 08457 950 950.

Our Customer Services team will discuss your requirements with you before your first posting and supply you suitable bag labels and parcel labels (if using our Despatch Management system). Our Customer Services team will send you an initial supply of appropriate thermal parcel labels (if using our despatch management software), bag labels and York cards. Further stocks of parcel labels (P6557), bag labels (P6644 for Royal Mail Tracked Next Day®, P6647 for Royal Mail Tracked®) and York cards (P6645 for Royal Mail Tracked Next Day®, P6646 for Royal Mail Tracked®) can be ordered free of charge by calling Royal Mail stationery and stores department on 08457 950 950 or visiting our online mail supplies page on online mail supplies page. Our local mail centre will supply suitable bags, containers (Yorks) and bag ties.

If you would like to know more details about Royal Mail Tracked^®, download our Royal Mail Tracked® Services Customer User Guide which details all aspects of using the service, whichever variant of Royal Mail Tracked^® you choose.

To ensure you know the status of your parcel at all key stages, Royal Mail Tracked® provides the following track points:

• Track 1 is created at the point of despatch when the parcel label is generated on either your own Despatch Management System or ours.
• Track 2 occurs when processed at the Royal Mail processing mail centre.
• Track 3 is created at the Inward Mail Centre by 7.00am on the due delivery day.
• Track 4 marks the arrival in the Delivery Office and is available by 10.30am on the due delivery date.
• Track 5 occurs at the delivery address when delivery of the parcel is attempted. This track is available within 15 minutes of delivery.

Additional tracks:

• If a parcel is not successfully delivered it is returned to the Delivery Office, a note is left for the recipient, the parcel is tracked at the Delivery Office and made available for customer collection.
• In the event of a parcel not being successfully delivered or collected within 18 calendar days, a final track is taken prior to the parcel being returned to you, the sender.

The most recent track of your parcel can be viewed on our Track & Trace system. Detailed reports are also available via our password-access website at www.royalmail.com/oba.

A return address always needs to be printed on the address label of the parcel. This will be used to return the goods to the sender in instances where the parcel can not be delivered to the customer. Parcels without a return address and Permitted Tracked Goods will be destroyed.

There is a standard suite of Management Information reports available via our password-access website at www.royalmail.com/oba.

1. Posting Manifest Reconciliation Summary - Reconciles pre-advised file against actual tracks.
2. Posting Manifest Exception Report - parcels pre-advised that are either rejected as being outside specification, or are subject to additional weight/volumetric prices.
3. Non Pre-advised Exception Report - parcels accepted by us that you did not pre-advise.
4. Itemised Billing Data - against specific order and contract.
5. Quality of Service - To enable you to keep an eye on how we are doing by viewing reports on delivery time statistics for your parcels, both by volume and percentage.

No, to ensure you are correctly charged for your parcels you can only have one weight posting profile on an account.

Royal Mail Tracked customers can access a range of attributes depending on which specific service code they have with Royal Mail. We have recently launched a number of enhancements to our services so that customers posting on our service code TP2 can now access additional attributes by migrating to service code TPS and those on TP1 by migrating to TPL. Check your Royal Mail OBA Sales invoice to see which service you currently use. This will be coded such as TP1, TP2, TPS, TPL or TPN. Download the Royal Mail Tracked attributes table (PDF, 59KB) to check the attributes you currently have. If you want to access the additional attributes contact your account handler or Sales Centre so we can arrange your product service migration.