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Royal Mail October changes
We have been told that this is NOT mandatory, so you are able to continue using your existing method. Please check with your Royal Mail Account Manager.
DMO is supported by Packing Partner, details are here. There isn't a lot to do to get it working.
You will need to setup shipping rules to tell Packing Partner what services you use on DMO.
If you are already using PPI, then you should just need to modify your existing shipping rules for DMO.
Label Size
The labels produced by DMO are 6" x 4" (150mm x 100mm). There is talk of a smaller label being produced but nothing has been confirmed yet.
The basic procedure is as follows:
Collect your orders as normal, Packing Partner applies the shipping rules.
Export and upload the carrier data to DMO, either in Packing Partner or your own browser.
Print labels in DMO or import them, to print on your own labels or invoices.
We have created a setup guide to help you get ready for these changes.
Update 8th October 2015
We are currently adding the ability to handle product weights, sizes and packages. Either from channels that support them, or using a lookup that can be created from your existing products.
Here is the latest information we have on the changes:
Weights on DMO can now be an average for the parcels you send, so you can use a default weight in Packing Partner's shipping rules.
A Package field has been added, for deciding how many products fit into a parcel, this will be in the next release.
The Package field is a value for each product, used to select a package or postal service for each parcel. e.g.
If 2 of a product fit a large letter then more than 2 must go Parcel; use a value of 0.49 . Then when there are 3 of the same product, you can create a shipping rule that says a package value >1 is packet , and <1 is large letter.
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Just been reading into this. Where does Packing Partner pull the weight info from? All the weights for every order are showing as 0.10kg which is incorrect. I have weights all entered into my Amazon listings, so not sure where this 0.10kg is being pulled from? Obviously when I switch to using DMO weights will be required so I'm keen to figure this out prior to October.
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Packing Partner does collect weights from Amazon but you may need to update your version.
click here to download the update, which should collect the weights but please let us know if you have any issues with that.
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hi, Does Packing Partner allow the Royal Mail barcode to be printed on the integrated paper through the packing partner system / label , rather than having to print off separate labels on the Royal Mail zebra printer? (as I don't want to have to match separate printed barcodes up to the printed dispatch labels that the aimco system prints (as I like them)
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Yes, there is a an option to import the PDF labels and print them through Packing Partner, but you will need a large label as the new RM labels are 100m x 150mm.
See here: http://aimcosoftware.co.uk/v3help/_chm/ … ation.html under Importing Carrier Labels.
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My eBay sales are through Multi-Variation listings, where each item's weight is different. The smallest weights 30g.The heaviest weights 22KG.
Unfortunately Multi-Variation listings only have a single weight for the entire listing, not per variation.
I have several listings with up to 250 variations on each.
I am switching from using a Franking Machine to DMO in a month, and it seems unlike PPI, using DMO I have to enter the weight of each package. As a new Royal Mail customer (franking did not count as a customer) I am required to use DMO from the start.
Packing Partner seems to either download weights with the orders (not applicable to our multi-variation listings) or set a default weight by shipping rules. However shipping rules cannot determine the package weight as they are not complex enough to determine all items that were ordered and add weights to them, and would not be accurate as it is also dependent upon packaging weights too.
What do people do in this situation?
Is there a way using Packing Partner to easily enter the actual weight of each order manually?
Thanks
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I forgot to tick the 'subscribe to this topic box' so had to reply again to do this. Sorry.
Very keen to work out the weight issue with DMO :-)
Thanks
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You can use a lookup, which can use either the full title or eBay custom label to lookup a weight.
See here: http://aimcosoftware.co.uk/v3help/_chm/ … ookup.html
We are also looking at creating a system within Packing Partner for creating an internal lookup for weights and dimensions, but that is only at the planning stage now.
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Excellent thanks Andrew! That helps to simplify my shipping rules immensely. I looked for such a feature but didn't find this in the help index until now I know the page title :)Obviously these pre-determined weights can be approximate at best, especially when different items are packed together in different packaging. Does it not matter for these variances in OBA, i.e. that the calculated weight would not completely accurately match the actual weight? I assume as long as the average weight of all packed items still fit in the same weight range the price remains the same so no problem - it would just be those boundary cases that calculated weights vs actual weights might tip it one way or another. I'd imagine Royal Mail might not be so happy if this happened to calculate lower than the actual average. What do other people do to address this?ThanksNick
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Ideally you should use the correct weight, as they will be added up in the output file for DMO.
I believe that RM are quite hot on checking correct weights, so probably best to put them in correctly.
If more than one item is packed, the total weight should be less than a single item, so you should always be under the limit.
Update 4th September 2015
We are implementing a solution that should solve this issue of multiple products. The idea is that each product has a numerical Package value, which corresponds to a particular package. e.g.
A product fits within Large Letter but a quantity of 3 or more go Packet, each product has a package value of 1
In the shipping rules, a record with a package value >=3 exports as Packet, all others as Large Letter.
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Hi Andrew
That is a cool idea!
On the weight accuracy, I am still waiting for RM to get back to me (they are slow!) about whether I can adjust the weights to correct them after the labels are printed and the packages packed, and stillwaiting for them to setup my account so I can get started and move on from franking labels. They have said we can enter the average weight against each item where the average weight and quantity are required (but still needs each item listed). This obviously won't apply for Packing Partner.
My reason for this is simply because I have items that come in packs of 100, boxed in 1000, and in a carton of up to 50,000. If I sell a pack of 100 that is lightweight and can go in a mailer bag. A box of 1000 weighs more than 10 packs because of the box. A carton full weighs more than the boxes inside. So it cannot be accurate using calculated weights, but is good enough approximation to determine which carrier to use. I still however need to determine the best way to ensure the right weights are given to Royal Mail DMO, whether that is to adjust the weights after upload, if possible, or if I need to weigh every item accurately once they are packed and update in Packing Partner (not currently possible).
I am sure others must be under similar circumstances and wonder how they are dealing with this?
I know the oldPPI approach didn't actually need weights for every package, so maybe over the next few weeks people will start to realise this problem and need to rush to resolve it.
Thank you
Nick
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Hello Nick
That's why we are looking into this now, but it's quite a complex issue to find something flexible enough to work for everyone.
if an average weight is acceptable, you can get that from the average of (100 products+bags) and (1000 products+box) divided by 1000.
The more feedback we have like yours, the easier it is to find a common solution so thanks for your input.
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ebay now want tracking uploaded to get 5 star dispatch rating new seller metrics they are introducing .once we all cross over to rmdmo will there be another built in add to upload all this .
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Yes, Packing Partner already does that if there is a tracking number.
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Is anyone successfully using packing partner with DMO now that Royal Mail have enabled average weight?
My understanding is that we can dispense with all the messing about with weights and trying to use rules to combine several items into one package as you are able to book and retrieve your DMO info without giving package specifics and then run a routine at the end of the day very similar to PPI.
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goalmer454 thank you for sharing this - I have been holding off using DMO because this was not available. Sounds ideal now, the best of DMO and PPi together.
I looked up the process and it seems to require a change to what gets uploaded to set the weight on every item to zero in the upload so we can then enter the average weight at the end of day process.
also we need to ask our account manager to enable this feature.
http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/ … ppendix-5_
If Packing Partner can be updated to use this feature that would be great and we can continue using our approx weights just to determine which carrier we use and not have to worry about having inaccurate weights submitted to Royal Mail.
Andrew - is this something you could look at? I guess an option could be added in the settings to enable the feature so zero is provided for the weights during upload, then we close out the end of day ourselves once we have weighed the sacks.
Many thanks - one step closer :-)
Nick
Last edited by nickhobbs (22-10-2016 10:07 am)
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Yes, it's a major step forward.
You are correct, the DMO team advised if you are using average weight, at time of booking set weight to zero.
This solves so many problems I'm amazed people aren't all over this....
Gary
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Hi Andrew
Does Packing Partner allow this to work for DMO where we still use approx weights to determine the carrier, but optionally not to submit the weights to DMO so we just work out the average weight of the batch at the end of the day and submit this manually?
Once we can do this, we can switch over to DMO, as our items and packaging vary in weight such that we cannot be accurate enough particularly when there are multiple items in an order, and may require a box rather than a bag for example....
If this is not yet possible, can it be added? I am really keen to benefit from the parcel delivery tracking feature of the 2D barcodes :-)
Thank you
Nick
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Hello Nick
Yes, I can add that, bit mad this week but will look into it for next week.
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Thank you very much!
Nick
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Had to do an update, and it wasn't difficult to add this in.
click here to download the update, then set Tools>Options>Settings>Despatch Manager>AverageWeight to Yes.
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Thank you Andrew :-)
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Hi, apologies if asked and answered but just need a bit of clarity. Will shortly be opening an OBA and using DMO, I've read the posts above regarding creating shipping profiles etc to specify service.
I send approx half and half large letter and parcel - both be going 48. I don't have product dimensions against my products. How do I get the import into DMO to accurately reflect the packet size?
And also I will be sending a fair proportion of packets tracked, but don't generally specify this in the product listing so its not reflected in PP - how to tackle that one?
Hope that makes sense. Many thanks.
Iain
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Hi iggy
Unfortunately it is not always that straight-forward. You of course have the ability to go through orders 1-by-1 and specify the shipping service for each which can be setup with the necessary data indicating Large Letter vs Parcel and Signed For or not, etc.
However to automate this we are dependent upon the shipping rules which only have maximum 2 conditions, of which we use 1 condition to determine what level of service was requested (1st/2nd class, 24h courier etc), and the other is to determine weight, i.e. if over 750g then it cannot be a Large Letter, so much go Parcel, or if over 2KG it must be courier (or 2x parcels), or if over 15kg then use a heavy-weight courier. Then we run out of conditions so we cannot narrow this down any further.
We have added some additional rules in between the others to identify some specific products that we know are under 750g but cannot be packed within large letter sizing, so we can treat them as parcel. Other items we cannot be sure of, so we flag them as TBC, so we look for these and manually determine the delivery method before we print the orders.
I'd like to be able to automate further, and having some additional conditions in the shipping rules would really help.
Andrew has indicated he is working on a new version that would enable tracking how many items can fit in a large letter and if over that quantity then it can be treated as a parcel etc, but that is not yet available and we don't know when that will come. We are likely to still have some borderline cases especially depending on the packaging required, that may require manual intervention.
The thing I am still uneasy about with DMO is that once we print the label, DMO is told it is a large letter or a parcel, and if we find when packing it we have to change it, that might be a bit more involved, as I assume we have to login to DMO and find that record and update/replace it with parcel or large letter as necessary. I have yet to try this out as I have to call the DMO team to enable average weights then update my dispatch notes/labels for DMO then I can try it.
Best regards,
Nick
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Many thanks Nick, I'm going to have to have a bit of a rummage. I'll get onto Royal Mail tomorrow and get an account set up then have a dig, see how we get on.
I am dead keen to use the pdf import to integrate label with sales invoice as I do at the moment - was assuming I would have to print labels separately on a thermal printer so really glad to see that functionality.
For me, the whole process is going to take longer whatever way I do it, am currently using drop and go where I just hand my parcels over the counter and they label and weigh them all for me.
Its been quite a hard decision as drop and go is so hassle free, and we're in a tiny village so we pretty much keep the local PO going. So am hoping the cost saving makes it worth while and the extra admin time isn't that much of a factor.
Just out of interest Nick, obviously no idea what it is you do or what sort of volume you deal in, but did you manage to wangle any sort of volume discount with RMG?
( Sorry for the life story )
Cheers
Iain
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