Probably more to come, but here’s a few tips I’ve picked up for use with my new Royal Mail Account (if you send £5,000 of mail a year, get one!).

If you’ve not seen it already, take a look at the previous post on using the OBA for beginners.

For today though, international mail tips, after the jump. And if any of it is wrong, comment! Most of it’s been worked out from a billion different docs from websites of about 10 different mail services from around the world, then clarified by Graham at RM (just ask for him if you need any International based queries answering ).

For background reading, head to the Universal Postal Union’s Letter Post Manual or Packet Post Manual. Frankly useless for UK mail as RM use modified standards, but interesting if you wanna know exactly how radioactive material should be taged and handled when posting . For European specifics and more RM orientated stuff (especially how the Petit, Grand & Encomberant standards are dictated) then see the REIMS (Remuneration of International Mails) Agreement text. Probably REIMS III (there seems to be a few revisions, I think this is the latest). And if you actually have a link to the damn thing, let me know, as I searched and searched and came up empty, other than the fact it exists. Somewhere. So here’s the best I can do for now…

International Mail Service Sizes

For OLA / OLS:

Letters (aka. Petit): size <= 245 x 165mm, thickness <= 5mm, weight <= 100g
Flats (Grand) - PRINTED PAPERS ONLY: <= 381 x 305mm, thickness <= 20mm, weight <= 500g
Packets (aka. Encombrant): <= 900mm (length, depth and width combined) with no single side > 600mm, and weight <= 2kg

For OZ / OF :

Sizes are same as above, other than Flats can be any item, not just printed paper.

This is “Unsorted & Format Sort” mail. OZ for everything outside Eastern Europe needs no more sorting than OLA, however for inside Eastern Europe (country list available from RM, basically any country in Europe not ending in “…ia” or “…an” ) then items can be sent by OF (Format Sort) and must be bagged by size type (Letters, Flats, Packets) as with standard UK Packetpost (CRL) other than the slightly differing sizes.

When booking, choose Rest Of World for all Unsorted mail. Why they even have another region in the options I dunno, but then I long since stopped questioning the madness of the OBA…
When tagging bags, either tick just Unsorted, or just one of the P/G/E (size) boxes.

Money Saving Tip: Any packets under 140g are cheaper to send to Eastern Europe by OZ than OF

For OZ4 / OZ6 / OF4 / OF6 (Mechable Mail):

Sizes are as standard OZ/OF, however they need to fit / fall through machinery, so for example if your Flats only just fit through a 20mm gap if pushed, they may not be suitable.

Mechable mail must also be square or rectangular items, not round or abnormal shaped. A bit ambiguaous, but basically boxes and DVD cases in jiffy bags should be fine, anything that could roll around on a conveyor belt, or won’t sit flat, is a no no.

Mechable mail does *not* need any special formatting of addresses, it seems to be purely concerned with size and shape.

In short, if you’re sending books, DVDs, CDs, standard rectangularly boxed goods, flat-packed anything, you may as well use Mechable instead of standard Unsorted / Format Sort.

NOTE: DVDs in jiffys may not actually be suitable for mechable Flats (though they’d be fine as mechable Packets). In a thin jiffy, it’s touch and go as to whether they’d fit a 20mm gap. I’m guessing in reality the machines are set 1mm thicker than the requested max thickness (20mm for Flats), as they are with UK letter sorting machines (they’re set to 6mm, and you all know how the max size is 5mm for UK letters, right? just ignore the PO’s who get pissy if things won’t “fall through” the 5mm guides, that’s exatcly why it’s 5mm and not 6mm, they only have to fall through the latter ).
Anyway, an extra 1mm would allow mail that only just fits the 20mm limit to actually fall through a slot @ 21mm. Then again, don’t quote me on that, you may wanna limit your Mechable Flats to 19mm just to be safe.

Cleanmail:

For Mechable mail suitable for OCR reading (computer reading of addresses). Sizes should be as Mechable, however I’ve no idea what needs to change for address lables. The best document on UK Cleanmail I’ve found, handily unavailable through the RM website, is at http://www.bluetang.co.uk/btwebsystems/utilities/postbarcode/Post%20Office%20Barcodes.pdf. You’re probably going to have to place content similar to page 66, though this may differ slightly for international mail, and flats/ packets (if they’re allowed as Cleanmail at all).