ship a royal mail parcel with local collect to a post office via click & drop
domain: developer.royalmail.net · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Register for a Royal Mail Online Business Account (OBA) and set up Click & Drop, then register as a developer at developer.royalmail.net to create an application and get an API key.
Authenticate API requests using the issued API key (Click & Drop's API uses simple key auth, unlike the OAuth2 flow used by Royal Mail's separate Pro Shipping API).
Call the Local Collect API to retrieve an up-to-date list of participating Post Offices and Royal Mail Customer Service Points near the recipient.
Create the shipment on a Local-Collect-eligible service — Local Collect is only available as an enhancement to Royal Mail Tracked and Special Delivery Guaranteed products, not all services.
Pass the selected Post Office/Customer Service Point identifier on the order/shipment so the label and tracking reflect Local Collect delivery.
Known gotchas
Local Collect only layers onto Tracked and Special Delivery Guaranteed — attempting it on standard/untracked services isn't supported.
Click & Drop's API key auth is a separate, simpler credential system from Royal Mail's OAuth2-based Pro Shipping/Mailmark APIs — don't mix credentials between the two product lines.
There's no extra cost from Royal Mail for using the Local Collect API, but integration effort is on the customer's side — don't assume a turnkey plugin exists for every platform.
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