Parcelforce Worldwide has launched a new FrankPay shipping system to provide businesses with instant access to all domestic and international services, with payment via a franking machine.
FrankPay helps customers to save time through in-house postage, enabling quicker processing of larger parcel volumes. It also keeps all payments in one place so that customers can efficiently manage postage spend without having to apply for a Parcelforce Worldwide contract.
Royal Mail say that franking is an easy, flexible way to pay for Royal Mail Group postage, including Parcelforce Worldwide postage of business parcels – especially if sending larger volumes. Payment is made via a franking machine at the end of the send.parcelforce.com booking journey. It also enables customers to create labels for UK and Export destinations and access a range of Next day delivery services.
In the new FrankPay shipping system, customers can simply choose the FrankPay option on the payment method page within the retail booking journey, enter their die number (their unique number on their franking machine) and generate their Parcelforce Worldwide labels. Payment via a Franking machine means customers can request a Parcelforce Worldwide collection or drop their parcel off at a Post Office and also save up to 15% on selected services when they join Parcelforce’s member scheme Rewards4U. More information is available online at: parcelforce.com/frankpay
Closer integration between Parcelforce and Royal Mail
This is especially interesting as in the past Parcelforce and Royal Mail have been run as two separate businesses but they are now being brought closer together.
At the start of the summer Nick Landon started acting as Chief Commercial Officer at Royal Mail to oversee all commercial and service areas for UKPIL and Parcelforce (UKPIL stands for UK Parcels, International and Letters). This brings all Royal Mail and Parcelforce reporting into a single person instead of operating as two distinct entities.
This appears to be an about turn from 2019 when then Royal Mail CEO Rico Back was running the show. Last summer the Parcelforce talk was all about floating Parcelforce off, perhaps as a separate limited company to give Parcelforce greater commercial and operational freedom. Now it would appear the two businesses are being brought closer together under Nick Landon… at least until a new CEO is appointed at which time they may have different ideas.