One of the biggest challenges of growing an online business lies in managing an efficient shipping process. Ultimately, as your business scales, you will need the right tools in place to ensure you can effectively handle and dispatch an increasing number of sales orders, all the while reducing unnecessary pressure on your business. 

This is where Royal Mail’s Online Business Account, otherwise known as OBA, helps a multitude of businesses across the UK. Below, we have compiled an overview of OBA, so that you can make an informed decision as to whether or not it’s a good fit for your company.

What is a Royal Mail Online Business Account (OBA)?

An Online Business Account, otherwise known as OBA, provides you with access to an online portal. You can easily manage your business mailing, shipping expenses, invoicing and reporting.

Essentially, as an Online Business Account holder, you can gain access to a number of benefits, including their business rates. You’re also saving time by managing your entire Royal Mail operations from a single place.

The benefits of using a Royal Mail Online Business Account

There are a number of benefits to using Royal Mail’s OBA, including the following;

Place multiple orders – With OBA, you can place multiple products on the same order, and save even more time when processing these orders through the use of ready-to-use templates. Specifically, instead of repeatedly typing in your order details, you can simply set up an order template for repeat mailings.

Easier payments – Rather than paying each time you dispatch your parcels, you will be invoiced for your shipping costs at regular intervals. It helps you to keep your outgoings more manageable.

Instant access to invoices – OBA users have instant access to up to 18 months of invoices, and can view both current and paid invoices at any given time. This also enables you to ensure your invoices are accurate, and easily raise a query if there are any problems.

Grant permissions – Maintain control by having the ability to grant access to certain employees and/or mailing agent, so that if necessary they can order on your behalf.

Access tailored reports – One of the best features about Royal Mail’s OBA is that you can access valuable data, through a number of insightful reports. These include;

• Overview Reports for data such as volume and value by account and product
• Sales Order Reports that go into more depth about your sales order details
• Trend Analysis Reports which provide greater details on contingency orders that have been raised
• Invoice Reports for sales order and service information for billing dates

Royal Mail Online Business Account prices

There are no fees for getting an Online Business Account, however in order to be eligible you will need to either send over 1000 large letters/parcels each year, or alternatively spend over £5,000 for the same time period.

How to get started with a Royal Mail Online Business Account

To get started setting up a Royal Mail business account, you will need to register your interest by completing this form.

You will then be instructed to provide information including your company details, your personal details including name, email address and phone number.

You will also be asked for the number of parcels you approximately send on a weekly basis, the size of these parcels, tracking requirements, item value, whether you send domestically or internationally, and also whether you are VAT registered.

Following completion of this form, you will be contacted by a Royal Mail Sales Representative to discuss your service requirements in further detail, before officially setting up your account. You should note that it can take anywhere from 10 to 30 business days for complete set up of your Royal Mail Online Business Account.

Take a look at Royal Mail’s extensive selection of Online Business Account training videos.