Separate the account from the tool used to dispatch
A merchant asking for a Royal Mail account often needs two things: an agreed delivery service and a reliable way to process orders. Online Business Account, or OBA, manages business billing, payments and reporting. Royal Mail recommends using a shipping solution such as Click & Drop to create orders and labels and automate the OBA process. Choosing OBA therefore does not, by itself, describe how your warehouse will print labels.
Click & Drop supports both personal customers and OBA holders. Its documented functions include marketplace connections, spreadsheet imports, shipping rules, product records, label printing and dispatch reports. Begin by describing where orders arrive and who packs them. A UK seller importing orders into one packing station has different needs from a brand sending data to several fulfilment sites. The suitable tool follows that working process.
Use Click & Drop when the standard workflow fits
For a straightforward ecommerce operation, assess Click & Drop before commissioning an integration. Map the order source, product weight, packaging, shipping rule, return address and printer. Confirm that the selected account exposes the services you intend to sell at checkout. A channel connection may reduce typing, but your team still needs to check that the imported order describes the final packed parcel accurately.
Our operational recommendation is to run a small representative pilot. Include a normal UK order, an address correction, a cancelled order and any international product you actually use. Follow each through label generation, dispatch and the applicable end-of-day process. Compare the customer reference with the parcel reference and the warehouse record. This reveals mismatches that a successful login or one printed test label will not expose.
Assess API and Pro Shipping against the published entry conditions
Royal Mail describes API Shipping as an integrated option for Business Account holders, suited to technically capable businesses sending more than 100 items daily. Its page calls for an IT team with integration experience and describes an approval and sandbox onboarding process. Functions include label formats, cancellation and manifest generation. Those capabilities require implementation work in your own systems; an API connection is not a complete warehouse workflow.
Pro Shipping addresses more complex dispatch arrangements, including multiple workstations, locations and trading names. Its published qualification list includes a posting Business Account, having assessed Click & Drop as unsuitable, at least 100 items a day and an in-house IT team. These are Royal Mail’s published conditions, rather than our guarantee of approval. Take your volumes, site structure and required features to Royal Mail for confirmation before planning a migration.
Investigate a failed label by the stage that failed
First ask whether the order reached the shipping system. If it did not, compare the marketplace or import source with the order list before purchasing another label. If the order exists but postage is not applied, review the packaging, measured weight and available service. If a label was generated, separate a PDF or printer problem from a booking problem. Reprinting the existing label is a different action from creating a second shipment.
Click & Drop’s lifecycle distinguishes New, Postage Applied, Label Generated, Despatched and, for OBA customers, Manifested. Use those statuses to make a precise support record. Preserve the order reference, time, selected service, visible error and the last successful action. For API work, our recommendation is to retain request identifiers and the result of each attempt, while keeping credentials and customer details out of public support screenshots.
- Order absent: review the import or channel connection.
- Order present: check packing data, service selection and account setup.
- Label present: inspect the file and printer before generating another shipment.
- Manifest problem: follow the documented manifest recovery process.
Agree ownership across Guangzhou and the UK operation
For China–UK orders, decide which team creates the UK label and which team may change it after repacking. Keep the final parcel identity connected to the supplier and consolidation records. If stock first enters Edinburgh fulfilment, agree whether labels are created for incoming stock or for later individual customer orders. Mixing those movements can attach a valid tracking number to the wrong customer conversation.
Document who handles cancellations, duplicate labels, end-of-day paperwork, collection evidence and billing review. These are our process recommendations, not additional Royal Mail product features. With Jeton Express, use the merchant discussion to confirm the service and handover arrangement for your actual traffic. Keep the shipping workflow small enough to audit, then expand automation once the pilot shows that parcel identities and dispatch evidence remain consistent.
Official references
References reviewed on 2026-10-07. Check current product and help terms before booking or making a claim.