Remember that lots of everyday objects you wouldn’t think twice about are prohibited from being sent in the post. These include items like aerosols, nail varnish and perfumes. So before you post anything, it’s best to check what’s restricted and prohibited.

You’ll want your items to fit as snuggly as possible without having room to move around, so choose a box that’s right for the job. There are plenty of packaging options available for items of any size, and you can pack any spare room with materials to hold your items in place. If you’re reusing a box, make sure it’s free from damage, especially at the corners and along folds. And of course it’s better to buy a box that’s too big than one that’s too small.

Prevent items from moving around in transit with packing. Try to be as green as possible with your choice of packing, but for some items the most appropriate choices are things like bubble wrap. You can buy packing materials quickly online, but there are cost-effective and environmentally-friendly options close to hand if you want. For instance, scrunching up newspaper pages to fill empty space can provide adequate cushioning for many items. We’ve got some useful info on how to pack your parcels in our guide.

Address your parcel in the same way you’d address a letter. If you're not sure of the address you're sending to - whether an entire address or just part of one - use a digital maps service or search engine like Google or Apple Maps to fill out the remaining details. 

There’s a simple structure for all UK addresses:

Name of recipient
House name/number and street
Locality

(if relevant)
Village/town/city

(if the address is very remote but is near a village or town, you can put “Nr” followed by the nearest named area, but this is usually unnecessary)
County

(again, this is usually unnecessary if you have the town and postcode)
Postcode

(print all letters in capitals)

By addressing your parcel correctly you can rest east knowing that it’s on its way to the destination without confusion. Align addresses on the left-hand side of the front face of the parcel without going over any edges. If your parcel is an odd shape, it can help clarity to write the address on a separate piece of paper and then affix this to your parcel to draw attention to it. There’s more information on addressing parcels in our guide.

Weigh your package by using scales if you have them. This is best done by weighing yourself on the scales, then weighing yourself again holding the parcel and subtracting the first value from the second. If your package weighs less than 1kg, weighing it on its own might not register on standard bathroom scales. If you’ve got cookery scales, these can be useful provided your package fits easily on them. If you don’t have any scales at all, you can estimate the weight of your package by finding household items with standardised weighs (like bags of sugar) and comparing the two, but this is a crude measurement. There’s also a handy guide on max weights and how best to estimate your package weight.

The price you’ll pay for postage will depend on a couple of factors. The first is an item’s weight. The second is how quickly you want it to arrive, and whether you want any special tracking or signature on delivery.

As a rough guide, a small parcel under 2kg costs £3.20 to send 2nd class and £5.57 to send 1st class. At the most expensive end, Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am® - which gets your package to its destination before 9am the next day and is tracked on its journey – costs £31.19 for a small parcel.

A medium parcel under 2kg costs £5.30 to send 2nd class and £9.02 to send 1st class, or is £31.19 for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am®. For parcels under 5kg, it’s £8.99 for 2nd class and £15.58 1st class; under 10kg is £20.25 2nd class and £21.90 1st class; and under 20kg is £28.55 2nd class and £33.40 1st class.

The options for different types of postage are:
1st class
2nd class
Signed For® 2nd class
Signed For® 1st class
Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm®
Special Guaranteed by 9am®

If you choose Signed For®, delivery speeds are no quicker than normal 1st or 2nd class; they simply have the added security of being signed for upon receipt and come with higher levels of compensation should they be lost or damaged.

We’re here to help with whatever questions you have abut posting. Simply drop into your local branch and let us know how we can help.