Bulk Dispatching Orders with Royal Mail Click & Drop

If you have a Royal Mail Click & Drop account you can easily connect your Yumbles account to it to save time on admin and customer service.

 

This integration enables you to easily do the following:

• with just a couple of clicks send the data for the  Yumbles orders you are ready to dispatch directly into your Royal Mail Click & Drop account (for you to then print your shipping labels),
• bulk mark those orders as Dispatched at the same time, and
• have customers automatically receive the Royal Mail tracking information, and if the order is being sent on a fully tracked service they will also receive all email notifications directly from Royal Mail (and SMS notifications too if they chose to provide their mobile number).

 

If you don't have a Royal Mail Click & Drop account find out more here >>

 

This guide describes how to set-up and use this feature.

 

Set-up

 

Step 1.  Generate an API Key in your Royal Mail Click & Drop account.   

 

An API key is a unique identifier so that two systems can "talk" to each other. In this case you need to generate an API key unique to your Royal Mail Click & Drop Account that your Yumbles account can then use to "talk" to it to pass the order data correctly.

Here's how:

1. In your Royal Mail Click & Drop account click on Settings and choose Integrations.

 

 

2. On the Integrations screen choose the button "Add a new integration"

3.  Select Click & Drop API

4. Complete the fields as needed, including giving this API connection a unique name of your choosing e.g. Yumbles API

5. Do not select the "Use address book references" option.

6. Save

7. You will be returned to the main Integrations screen. Select the API integration that you have just created.

8. Within that API screen you should now see the API Key has been generated. Copy it. 

 

 

Step 2.  Link your Yumbles account to your Royal Mail Click & Drop account.   

1. In the Seller Portal click on your company name in the top left hand corner to access your account settings
2. Go to the new tab called "Services"
3. Paste in your Royal Mail Click & Drop API key in the field indicated.
4. Save.

Your Royal Mail Click & Drop account is now connected to your Yumbles account

 

 

Step 3.  Confirm in your Shipping Options which Royal Mail package type you will be using. 

1. Go to your shipping settings (Administration > Shipping)
2. In each shipping option that you will use Royal Mail for, click to edit it and confirm the typical package type you use e.g. Small Parcel.   This sets this as the default package type for your Yumbles orders with this shipping option, but you can change this where needed in Click & Drop.
3. Save

Note: 

 

• This is just to set default values to be used.  If these don't apply to all of your orders then you can adjust these directly in your Click & Drop account where needed.  You can also in your Click & Drop account set-up rules to determine which package types should be set which can then override these default values pulled in for your Yumbles orders.
• if the shipping weights for any of your orders are more than the maximum weight accepted by Royal Mail for the default package type you have selected here, then instead the next package size up will be set.  For example, if you set Small Parcel as the default package type in your Standard Delivery option, and you then get an order where the shipping weight is 2.5kg then instead the package type for that parcel will be set as Medium Parcel. 

 

Step 4: Map each of your Yumbles shipping options to the services you use in Click & Drop

 

1. Go back in your shipping settings (Administration > Shipping)
2. In each of your shipping options (where you use Royal Mail) make a note of the "Royal Mail Service Code Alias"
3. In your Click & Drop account then go to the Settings:

 

 

4. Select one of the services that you use

5. Within that page for that service there is a field for "Alias" enter in the Alias you have for the Yumbles shipping option that uses that service. 

 

 

6. Select "Update"

7. Repeat these steps for each shipping option you offer.

 

Once you start importing Yumbles orders into Click & Drop (see the next section) they will then be mapped to the right Royal mail services that you are using. For example all orders where the customers selected Standard Delivery on Yumbles, will be mapped to Royal Mail 1st Class (BPL1) if you have set the alias for Standard Delivery against that BPL1 service code in your Click & Drop account.

Just remember that if the Royal Mail service codes that you use change (e.g. you stop using BPL1 and instead start using BPR1), you will need to repeat these steps to remove the alias from the Royal Mail service you no longer use and add it to the new service you are using.  Do this before you import (bulk dispatch) the next batch of orders so that they come through with the right postage mapping.

 

 

Step 5. Confirm your product shipping weights

If you would like the correct shipping weights for each order pulled into your Royal Mail Click & Drop account then make sure that each listing has the correct shipping weights defined.

1. In each of your product listings make sure that you have completed the Shipping Weights field on the Shipping Properties tab.  The unit here is grams so for 1kg enter 1000.
2. If any of your products have option variants that affect their shipping weight, then also add the weight modifier (i.e. the extra weight) in the options directly for the larger weights.

 

IMPORTANT NOTES:   

• If you currently offer free shipping for specific products in your listings the shipping weight field will be greyed out.  To edit it just momentarily change the free shipping setting to not offering free shipping, then edit the shipping weight field, and then revert back the free shipping and save changes. (We will fix this for future).
• If you currently have shipping options only offered for specific products and/ or specific products that only have some of your shipping options available then please contact Seller Support (sellers@yumbles.com).  Such logic is reliant on some shipping weight limits having been set and so this will need adjusting if you start inserting correct shipping weights in all of your listings.

 

 

Dispatching Orders

Once you have completed the above set-up steps you are ready to bulk dispatch orders with your Royal Mail Click & Drop account.

IMPORTANT:  only use this for orders you will be shipping within the next 24 hours at most.  There is a tab on your Orders page to help you easily identify the orders "Due for dispatch" including any advance orders now due for shipping.

 

1. From the Orders page select the orders you are ready to dispatch.  You can select up to 20 orders at a time (we will increase this limit soon).
2. Using the bulk settings icon in the top right hand corner of the orders list - select "Bulk dispatch with Royal Mail".

 

 

 

The following then happens automatically:

• The packing slips will appear ready for printing, if you haven't already completed that step
• The data for those orders will be sent directly to your Click & Drop account ready for you to print shipping labels from there.   
• The following data assumptions/ calculations are made for you based on your settings - but you can edit any of these directly for any of the shipments in your Royal Mail Click & Drop account before printing shipping labels:
  
  • The package type will be set as the package type defined by your shipping settings as stated in the set-up steps, unless the shipping weight calculated for an order exceeds the maximum for that parcel type in which case it will revert to the next parcel type up.
  • The shipping weight of the orders will be calculated from the shipping weights you have defined in your product listings, as stated in the set-up steps.  If a shipping weight cannot be calculated for any orders because you have not entered shipping weights for the products or those shipping weights were not set when the order was placed, then the default value set will be 1g.
• Order statuses will be automatically changed to Dispatched for you
• Customers will receive the usual Yumbles dispatch email confirmation that will confirm that their order has been sent by Royal Mail.  That email will also include the link to track their order via the Orders page in their Yumbles account.   
• In the customer's Yumbles account their Orders page will have the Royal Mail tracking number and link to track via Royal Mail for their order.  This tracking number and link will only be available to the customer once you print the shipping labels in Click & Drop. If a customer checks this tracking page before you have printed the labels then it will let them know that tracking will be available shortly, and ask them to check back later.
• If you have sent their order on a tracked service, customers will also begin to receive the inflight delivery notifications via email from Royal Mail and also their SMS notifications if the customer provided a mobile number with their order.

 

NOTE:

• Any orders already received before you have set your shipping weights in the set-up steps will just have a default shipping weight of 1g calculated. This will then as a one off need be corrected in Click & Drop when you use this function to import them in. Any orders received after you have set the shipping weights will have the correct shipping weights set.
• given the above communications to customers, all sellers are asked to only use the Bulk Dispatch with Click & Drop function when you are shipping out the selected order within the next 24 hours at most.  We do not recommend that you use this function to import orders into Click & Drop days before you are actually shipping orders out.  Customers will receive very confusing communication that their order is on it's way when actually it is not, which will only lead to customer messages and complaints.