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Hi Iain
There was no negotiation with Royal Mail for the volume that we do, between 50-80 a day most days, as a mixture of large letter and small parcels. It seemed to be a standard price list that works out a little cheaper than over the counter prices if you are not VAT registered.
However if you are VAT registered then it is much better to use their account prices as you can claim back the VAT which does not exist on the over the counter prices.
If you are VAT registered then you need to use the RM24 or RM48 services which include VAT that when reclaimed is the clear winner. Otherwise if not VAT registered then you should use First Class or Second Class which do not have VAT and works out slightly cheaper when not reclaiming VAT.
Good luck!
Nick
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You can now also use average weight as you do with OBA, just specifying zero for the weight in the DMO export will do that.
There is an option in Tools>Options>Settings>Despatch Manager, to use that option.
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I just contacted Royal Mail DMO support to enable this average weight feature on my account, and was advised that at the moment Royal Mail will NOT produce barcodes for items sent using the average weight feature, so they cannot be tracked for delivery status.
He did say this is something Royal Mail is working on, but has no idea when they plan to release barcodes on average weight orders.
So unfortunately as I am currently printing PPI labels, I see no advantage of switching to DMO with average weight until they add the barcodes. At least at the moment I can add my own branding and discount offers directly to a single PPI address label, which would not be possible on a DMO printed label.
So thanks Andrew for making Packing Partner support this, however Royal Mail have not yet made this feature worthwhile using over PPI.
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No problem, and thanks for the info, always useful.
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I have got a DMO account now set up using the Manual inputting with average weights. This seemed like the best route to go down as I do not have weights and sizes added to any of my products and really would not like to add them all if avoidable. However, after using it for the first time, I have decided that if you are doing more than about 10 orders a day it really is very time consuming and not worth it. Therefore I am wanting to set up the integration between PP and DMO over three platforms - E Bay/Amazon and Firepages but am really not very techie at all and have fallen at the first hurdle of shipping rules. I am very happy to pay someone to set this up for me as I have wasted several hours already and could use my time better elsewhere! Is this something you can offer as a service Andrew? I am sure that I will not be the only one who needs help with the transition.
Thanks in advance
Tracy
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At the moment I am just too busy to offer that service, but it is something that I am working towards.
If you can Email us so that I can get back to you when I have time.
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Thank you Andrew.
I am at this moment trying to plough my way through it as I am determined not to be beaten. I have done shipping rules etc and set up a template but am getting stuck on Import Shipments from DMO number 2 - Select file to import. I have set up an Aimco file, but have no idea where it is stored?? Just tried to edit it to see where it saves but none the wiser! For some reason I am unable to e mail you as I do not have a mail client set up so the e mail facility does not work. Is there another way I can contact you please? I am thinking it should be straight forward as I do not have to enter format (letter/large letter etc) due to having average weight implemented on my DMO account. All I need to do is import addresses and I do all the tech stuff at the EOD run which is where I then dictate how many of the labels I have printed are apportioned to letters/large letter/parcel/signed for etc. I am happy to manually import the few overseas ones I get so that can also cut out another large chunk or details and again, am happy to manually import signed for if this does not get picked up. Basically all I need it to do is collect the addresses from the three platforms and I can then do the rest.
Thank you again.
Tracy
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The email is support@aimcosoftware.co.uk
When you first exported for DMO, you will have been asked for a folder, you can see or change it from:
Tools>Options>Settings>Despatch Manager>Folder
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Thank you Andrew.
By some miracle, I have managed to get an import into DMO. Nothing apart from the address is actually correct and with me being on average weight, I think it is causing some issues, but it is a start. For some reason it didn't collect the Amazon records, but I seem to remember reading something about that which needs tweaking.
If it helps, I am probably the least techie person on this forum, so will give heart to anyone else who has had a heavy heart over this - it is doable!
What I need to address now is how to tell it what is a letter and what is a parcel, but it is beginning to sort of make sense.
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For average weight, you need to set the default weight in the shipping rules to zero.
At the moment, the only way to tell it which is letter or parcel is to do it manually in the Records Tab. The next version will have a way to determine that automatically.
Not exporting Amazon records probably means you haven't set the shipping rules for Amazon.
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That explains why I couldn't find where the rule was which told it letter or parcel. Would it be possible to differentiate between the two if the rules were something like under £10 = letter, over £10 = parcel? That would more or less cover my items.
Will look into the Amazon shipping rules later.
Thanks for your help as I appreciate how busy you are, but hopefully my basic queries will help others in the same boat.
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Yes, you can do that but I thought with average weight, you don't need to distinguish.
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You are correct.
For some reason, when I import it randomly allocates large letter or parcel next to each order where it should actually be greyed out. I think I need to start tackling it from the DMO side now but I have an issue whereby I cannot login into DMO via Packing Partner. When I select login, a box half flashes up and then disappears again. It may have been a problem with the site itself so will try again later. I don't know why I have been stressing about parcel v large letter - it kept me up half the night! Thank you for clearing that up.
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That was an issue in an old version of Packing Partner.
Try the latest version: http://aimcosoftware.co.uk/download/ppv32update.exe
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I have run the update, but unfortunately DMO login still wont open in packing partner. It flashes and crashes. I am up to date on everything else so no idea why I cant get the log in page.
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Can you give me a call, I need to connect to you and have a look at this.
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DMO is a waste of time if you are on average weight. You cannot check the delivery conformation when DMO is set up with average weights.
After months and months of being passed from pillar to post and frankly being lied to, we were told this was a commercial decision by Royal Mail not to implement this for customers on average weight, complete opposite to how DMO was sold to us.
Bottom line is DMO is set up for Royal Mail revenue protection, and as an earlier poster has said is quite time consuming uploading and downloading the various files needed.
We are now back on PPI, vastly easier to use!
Gary
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