UKC

(Seen in another place (TLF, credit to JohnB)

Reinventing stamps for the future

https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps

"Following a successful national trial we will now be adding unique barcodes to all our regular ‘everyday’ Definitive and Christmas stamps."

If you happen to have bought a stash of stamps before one of the recent price rises, be mindful that you only have 11 month window to get them swapped over from 31 March 2022.

Does that mean we can't re-use them if they haven't been stamped?

From the article:

"Non-barcoded stamps will be phased out but will remain usable until 31 January 2023."

next step will be only able to buy stamps with a smartphone

I heard they were trying to stamp them out.

It'll certainly save them money because of people unable to do that any more, plus the cost of maintaining the kit that stamps over the top of them as this will no longer be needed, just a simple solid-state camera to scan the barcode.

Its interesting that each "barcode" (actually, qr code) is unique. For stamps bought with a card, it might be possible to link them back to the purchaser if the Post Office's till system can scan the stamps at the time.

My guess is this is partly about forged stamps, which I read somewhere is more of a problem than I would have thought. Perhaps they want to offer some way for people to print stamps at home, with the qr code offering a way to detect fakes. And maybe some kind of simple app-based tracking service?

I just tried scanning a leftover Christmas stamp and it encodes a text string that looks like it contains decimal and hexadecimal digits:

JGB S111510170310812351000085240521027E887AEC6332FA5801

I heard on the radio yesterday, that the new stamps are, at least in part, to allow the Royal Mail to track items through its system to reduce/minimise items going astray, getting delayed, and/or getting lost.

To be Frank, I don't think you've been able to lick 'em for a long time.

You're a bit behind the times there - that's something that's already been available for ages:
https://send.royalmail.com/

Thanks. I used used that a bit during the pandemic, but I'd forgotten about it.

Printing stamps probably isn't all that compelling as an idea.

"Dear customer. Your letter to M60 2LA is held in a backlog at our Warrington South sorting office. Click Yes and enter your card details for Enhanced Delivery tomorrow before 10pm. Click No for Standard Delivery in 9-12 days time."

🤣 Well, never say never what they or any company will do to make money in future! If they could get away with not having to deliver to every UK address they would have stopped that years ago!

They will have to up their game though IMO if they are going to compete with the other couriers. I’m beyond being amused that tracked with RM is “not available” until after the item has been delivered. Doesn’t help me figure when they may deliver 😉!

Got to be worth it, for the Shawn the Sheep video.

If I put £1.53 in stamps on a Large Letter (100-250g), using a £1, 50p and 3x 1p stamps, which one of them's QRcode is used to track it?

Probably none of them currently 🤣. There was no mention of “when” the RM could use the codes for tracking purposes!

They aren't for that purpose, they are for revenue protection.

Maybe that was what started the idea, but the RM themselves mention on their website about new innovative services; at present they say they have a video of Shaun the sheep that can be viewed using the stamp QR code through a RM app.

The BBC radio program I mentioned earlier that I heard said that in part the code would allow the RM to track mail items; they would not have reported on that specifically if that was not part of the plan by RM I would have thought. In practice therefore it seems the new stamps will multiple purposes for the future, not just revenue protection?