Shipping Label - Integrate with Royal Mail Click and Drop

[Jools]

Royal Mail supports integration with various online stores and marketplaces

Integration with Square would be great so that shipping labels could be automatically created, and postage paid

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/click-how-to-guide.pdf

https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11716/~/click-%26-drop---connect-your-ch...

Regards

Jools

[#2]

Hello everyone, this is Alex from the Square Online product team. We know how frustrating it is to have been told that a Royal Mail Click & Drop integration is on the roadmap for two years, and we're sorry that we haven't yet been able to launch this for you. Behind the scenes, we're in the process of making some fundamental changes to our shipping product, so we decided to build all shipping carrier integrations (not just Royal Mail) in a way that aligns with our long term strategy. This will take us time to fully execute. We also understand that you have to make decisions about how to operate your business, and that an expectation of a Royal Mail integration has been a key factor in choosing to continue using Square. Unfortunately, we don't have a concrete update that we can share with you on our plans or timeline for this today, but we'll be sure to post in this thread when our beta is ready for you. 

[gazzagee]

Thanks for that, actually we are with Square for our in store till system, and invoicing payments etc. we tried to use the website a few years ago, but we couldn't list/update our 22k products with out a major headache, hence changing to Shopify at that point, however our new business only has 5-7 main product lines so thats not an issue, however if we are to keep thing streamline we need integration with our postal services.

So unfortunately although we would like to use square for the new business we have decided to go with Shopify again, if Square change we will look at moving across.

[tonydow]

I don’t thinks it’s up to Royal Mail to set up an integration. They provide the information and it’s up to Square  to implement it. Square have said there are technical challenges etc but lots of other platforms have done it so I don’t think it would be that problematic. It’s just down to them wanting to do it.

[doc_choc]

I'm with you there, not my strength either. I would say if you know what you doing it probably isn't too big a deal but it would take a lot of time and effort to figure out if its not in your skillset. 

[doc_choc]

We are currently in the thick of our postal season for our business and I would say an integration would be greatly received (I'm in pain 😭). The time it takes to fulfil a product on Square at this point is way too long compared with an integrated system. I did a time comparison this morning for a little fun to fulfil 5 products on Square compared with one of our other platforms that is integrated with Royal Mail Click and Drop.

The integrated system allowed me to select as a bulk action my 5 products, I selected the dispatched date and printed the 5 orders in one PDF. The customer shipping data was waiting for me in Click and drop, I added the parcel weight printed the stickers all 5 in one go which triggers their dispatch and tracking to be sent back to the integrated system and customer. All 5 done in two mins. The longest part was adding the weight to click and drop system and applying the sticker.

Square, not sure where to begin detailing the steps. In essence the time is consumed by not having bulk actions to accept orders, print orders and then there is the manual population of delivery data in to the Royal Mail Click and Drop, then there is the manual population of tracking data back in to Square. It took 15 minutes to dispatch all 5 items on Square and I have being doing this for good few years now, but its still too lengthy a process and prone to human errors. As a small business online this could be a constraint. If you are sending out a handful of parcels a day, manageable anything more than this and its a judgement call. Depends if the Square strategy is to encourage small businesses and look to retain them as they grow or just focus on in small business entrants in to the market. For me its a no brainer, more customers, more transactions, better customer retention and loyalty more money for the system provider. But there may be bigger things afoot we are not privy too.

From a customer satisfaction point the integration would make sense. Technically I am not qualified to say what the issues may be but I can only assume its possible as the all the other major players in this field are integrated with Royal Mail Click and Drop. I have spoken with Royal Mail a couple of times over the years and they welcome new integrations but it really needs to be a discussion of Square UK and Royal Mail to get the ball rolling on this. I have business to run and can't enable these deals to be done.

I'll keep putting it on Christmas pressie list every year! 🎅🎁😀

[jbarronuk]

Hi All,

I stumbled across this thread while building a RoyalMail integration for a client's systems, I can't believe there isn't a third party app to integrate RoyalMail and Square. If this is something you guys still need (I suspect it is) or if you've found a workaround that does the job, let me know. I'm sure I could build an integration and put it on the square app marketplace, it wouldn't be free but I'm sure we could come up with a figure that would work for us all. I'm not a Square user so I'll need input on what is actually required. I'm not sure of the rules on here so I won't list my email address but if enough people need this, I'll build it.

Many thanks

James Barron, I'm a software engineer btw and I'm on Linkedin

[jbarronuk]

I'm really surprised no one has got in touch, have you found a work around?

I'd like to clarify something, I wouldn't charge those of you that provide input to build the app. The development time/cost is all on me.

[SGM1]

Hi,

I think the issue is your offering another paid for add on.

I think this has been offered before.

What people are looking for is square to provide a free integration with Royal mails click and drop and business account system.

Especially as Royal Mail are the uk's biggest provider.

[jbarronuk]

That makes sense, I assume everyone else's silence means they feel the same as you.

Thanks @SGM1 you've just saved me a couple of weeks of development and ongoing support for a product no one actually wants 🙂

[Spookytech]

Hi @jbarronuk 

it’s not that we don’t want it. It’s just that it’s another subscription we would have to sign up for. I’m a very small business that doesn’t have the free cashflow for something like that. I’m doing it manually at the moment.

but thank you for your time and willingness to put something together. It’s very thoughtful and kind of you.