Royal Mail now surcharging for Unreadable Barcode and Label Incorrectly Applied etc.
Royal Mail now surcharging for Unreadable Barcode and Label Incorrectly Applied etc.
RM are squeezing as much as they can out of small businesses. We've been with them for years. Loyalty does not mean anything to them. Prices go up every year even though we send the contracted volume of parcels. Surcharges being added left, right and centre.
I've gotten a quote from Evri which is going to save us around £600-£700 a month over RM. We are seriously considering moving over to Evri.
I've been told by Evri sales person their service has improved over the past few years. Can anyone who uses Evri confirm this?
Last time we used them a few years ago, they were losing a lot of parcel and their collections times were all over the place. We do SFP so collection times are very important.
Thanks
Royal Mail now surcharging for Unreadable Barcode and Label Incorrectly Applied etc.
Royal Mail now surcharging for Unreadable Barcode and Label Incorrectly Applied etc.
RM are squeezing as much as they can out of small businesses. We've been with them for years. Loyalty does not mean anything to them. Prices go up every year even though we send the contracted volume of parcels. Surcharges being added left, right and centre.
I've gotten a quote from Evri which is going to save us around £600-£700 a month over RM. We are seriously considering moving over to Evri.
I've been told by Evri sales person their service has improved over the past few years. Can anyone who uses Evri confirm this?
Last time we used them a few years ago, they were losing a lot of parcel and their collections times were all over the place. We do SFP so collection times are very important.
Thanks
3 replies
Seller_JadlkaRicVWEC
I can't comment on Evri as I don’t use them, but I recommend checking your Royal Mail surcharges and appealing them if anything seems off.
Since Jan 2025, Royal Mail has been charging for unreadable barcodes (IPROL). However, based on my experience, I don’t fully trust their system. I’ve been scanning all barcodes before dispatch, and they’re always readable. I recently appealed some surcharges, and a field manager came to inspect, he also confirmed the barcodes were fine. We even tested by smudging them to see if label friction caused issues, but it didn’t. So in my case, the fault lies with Royal Mail, yet the surcharges are still being issued.
Often, they don’t provide any images of the "unreadable" barcodes. When they do, it’s just the replacement barcode covering the original, so there’s no way to verify the issue. Appeals usually get met with long, automated responses that just blame the sender. It’s incredibly frustrating when you know you’ve done everything right.
That said, the more people who appeal, the more likely they are to take this seriously and investigate properly. Royal Mail is still the cheapest option for large letters, if there are no surcharges, so hopefully they sort this out soon so we don’t all have to look elsewhere.
