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. 

[SGM1]

@Lou8 

Please don't raise those integrations again! They do not do what we need!

Royal mail has a click and drop system linked which can also link to business accounts held with them.

This is a free system we only pay for postage and as a business account holder at a discounted rate.

@tonydow 

I don't think we will ever get this as it does not link to a paid app which is all Square seem to be interested in.

A shame as the core system is good.

I have never seen anything come from these forums unless it is something they want to do!

We waited for months / years when this was first raised to have them go here's a partner app rather than link direct to royal mail which by all accounts is not difficult.

[Lou8]

Hi @SGM1,

I understand your frustration, and we're here to help in any way that we can.

While I appreciate that the integrations with Shippo and EasyShip don't work for your business, they might suit other sellers. 

Implementing new features can be a complex process that involves a lot of work and coordination across different teams. The engineering team must ensure that the new feature is technically feasible and meets all necessary performance and security requirements. There can be external factors which can add extra layers of complexity to the process. 

We will make sure to keep you updated on any future progress related to this feature.

Finally, if you have a moment, I kindly ask that you review our Community Etiquette Guidelines again to help us maintain a productive conversation.

[Spookytech]

Its because Royal Mail is not an American business.

I integrated with Shippo, but it doesn't do what I need it to do and I also have an account with Royal Mail.

shame really, would of been nice to have Royal Mail integrate with square would save me a lot of time and energy.

[doc_choc]

Hi @Spookytech agreed that a lot of the initial development work is done with the US market, which eventually broadens out to include other key markets around the world, but it makes sense to test it in your home market first, iron out the issues. I think its less to do with Royal Mail being located out outside of the US and possibly more where do you allocate resources to produce a gold standard platform. I too would love to see a Royal Mail integration as it would make my business run smoother, but I would also like to see new features being implemented in the loyalty and marketing programs. The latter would benefit my business more, but we are always looking at were to put our time and money for maximum returns and I'm sure the developers are too.

Having said this we do use integrations with Royal Mail on third party market place platforms, and these work really well, it takes less than 5 mins to knock out the orders, a lot of orders, all we have to do is accept the order and print, the integrations does the rest populates the address, names, emails, order numbers etc, once we print the order it then generates the tracking and pings this back to the third party platform, which then automatically send out the tracking emails. They also give the option of gift receipt or full receipt and we can even add gift messages to the gift receipt. Thought out very well for maximum return for their business, they know what their customers want and how to deliver this. The Square as it stands is a little challenging in this respect and prone to more cut and paste human errors resulting in customer complaints. Plus it takes hours to complete orders, not ideal, real stumbling block. Similar companies to Square really have this nailed with Royal Mail Integrations so it's possible to do but its a decision for Square as to whether they want to do and whether or not it would benefit their users. 

[tonydow]

As suggested above, it’s a question of Square wanting to do this integration. They have been saying they are planning this for at least four years but still no further forward. Similarly, Square Messaging is yet to make it to the UK.

[grownlocal]

Disappointing that this is still being overlooked,

It's the only thing stopping me pulling the trigger on moving my business to square online and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I'll check back in two years!

[gazzagee]

We are just contemplating which platform to set up our next shop up with, we currently have a great business on Shopify and the Click & Drop system works great, however shopify is a little more expensive, so looking at square, but it looks like Square will not work with Click & Drop and one of the main aspects (for us) when picking a platform, as we already have business rates with royal mail, and all the collections etc.. are already set up. so what we want to know is can we download 'the days orders' in to a spreadsheet, that we can then use with Click & Drop, and does this fill all the required fields needed?

many thanks in advance

[doc_choc]

@gazzagee Hi there, wish this integration was active but alas it isn't. I see that RM have just added a Tik Tok integration.

The answers to your question is yes you can export your orders to Excel, populating name, order number address, mobile and email for tracking but its all a bit clunky. We do a mid range level of shipping using RM Click and Drop and opt manually transfer the data over, its is however prone to human error. Also upon dispatch and generation of the tracking number doesn't automatically back populate the Square System. It would be lovely to have the integration. Please Square can we have an early Christmas pressie....pretty please 😍

[gazzagee]

Ah ok so its a bit of a task, I think its kind of answered my question, it would need to populate the tracking number back in to square so we can answer customer questions if late or missing 😞 

Shame as I would prefer to use square, I can't see away around it

Thanks for the reply 😉

[grownlocal]

It’s an awful business decision on squares part not to implement click and drop it’s probably cost them thousands of potential customers.

[doc_choc]

@grownlocal we have struggled on for some years now and at Christmas for us it is particularly challenging and very time consuming when we should be focusing our business not dragging and dropping data from Square to Royal Mail and then back with the tracking to Square. Having said this we have stayed with Square for a couple of reasons, mainly as the vast majority of the system is really good, there are always going to be things that don't suit your business the way it operates, but in the main its extremely good. Also we hope one day Square will address this issue and then it will be happy days. Give  Square a little trial run, you might find as we do that it is really good for our business. (plus the community is the best! :))

[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.

[Spookytech]

Its a shame there isnt someone that is really technical that would build and app for us that uses Royal Mail. The tools are there on the click and drop website.

if i was clever enough and knew what i was doing i would of done something. But it looks too complicated and i struggle with writing an email.

i don't even know how to ask royal mail if they would look at building an integration for Square.

i feel that there is a massive gap here that needs looking at... we need to create a movement to get it looked at and make it a priority!

[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]

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! 🎅🎁😀

[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. 

[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