There are several reasons why individuals and businesses might need to make use of mail forwarding. For example, you might’ve just moved house and you’re worried about missing important post before you get the chance to tell everyone about your new address. Perhaps you’re a small business owner who doesn’t want to have to publish your home address across the web. Your mail can be digitally or physically forwarded.

In this article, we’re going to take a deep dive into personal and business mail forwarding, including how it works, the benefits and what considerations you need to make before choosing a provider.

Introduction to mail forwarding

Mail forwarding is a service that ensures your personal or business mail moves with you whenever you change your home or office address.

In the UK, mail forwarding is available from the Post Office, as well as virtual office service providers like Hoxton Mix. A mail forwarding service can be for a specific period of time (for example when moving house) or be relied upon as a permanent service (for example, supporting a business). Irrespective of why you need your mail forwarding, the key benefit is that you never miss any important correspondence.

However, small businesses will often rely on mail forwarding if they don’t have a physical office address. Rather than publishing their home address, businesses can purchase a virtual address with mail forwarding, ensuring their family home remains private while still receiving all of their business mail safely and securely.

How mail forwarding works

Forwarding mail in the UK is a straightforward process, but how it works depends on whether it’s provided by the Post Office or a provider like Hoxton Mix.

If you use Royal Mail as your mail forwarding provider, they will simply forward postal mail intended for your old premises to your new address, this is a simple postal redirection without any additional services such as mail scanning or collection options. Royal Mail’s mail redirection service can be purchased for a period of 3, 6 or 12 months.

However, when businesses choose a vendor like Hoxton Mix, there is no limit on how long mail can be forwarded to a designated address. A virtual office is so much more than a mail forwarding service, it should be seen as an effective and reliable business tool. It comes with additional options and services, which include mail digitisation, scanning, physical forwarding, collection options and secure storage, all from our central London office.

After your account is activated, we’ll process all of your business mail at our secure facility. As soon as we receive a piece of mail, we’ll send you a notification and either forward it to your designated private address or scan the document and send it over as a high-res PDF within one business day of receiving it.

Remember, it is a legal requirement to have an address where your business mail and legal correspondence are sent.

Note that if you’re a private individual looking for mail forwarding services to make sure you don’t miss any post following a house move, Royal Mail is probably your best option.

Types of mail forwarding services

There are two types of mail forwarding services: physical mail forwarding and digital mail forwarding. Let’s take a look at both in more detail.

Physical mail forwarding:

Physical mail forwarding involves the forwarding of the actual post you receive. The processing time for physical mail forwarding varies depending on the vendor. Hoxton Mix guarantees to forward all postal mail to your private address within one business day. There are additional factors at play with physical mail forwarding, as you are reliant upon the courier or Royal Mail.

Digital mail forwarding:

In the case of digital mail forwarding, the provider still receives your physical post, but instead of forwarding it to a private address, it is scanned and sent securely as a high-resolution PDF. The Royal Mail’s redirection service doesn’t include the option for digital mail forwarding.

This is typically the fastest and most secure way to forward mail - once digitised, it will be sent to you. Digital mail sending is inherently quicker, is tracked and can be stored more easily. At Hoxton Mix our proprietary service is fully digital, offering you tracked, scanned, tagged and sorted mail sent directly to you. This reduces administration efforts and makes document management easy. We process and forward all mail to you within 1 working day. We have securely processed over 1 million pieces of mail to date.

If you’re a business, not only does this mean you can receive your important company correspondence faster, but it also means you don’t confuse your business mail with your personal mail. At Hoxton Mix, we can also provide secure document shredding as an additional service while we’ll also filter out all of your junk mail.

Key components of mail forwarding

Mail forwarding for a business is easy to set up, and it doesn’t require much information from you to get started. In fact, you can secure a virtual office address from Hoxton Mix in less than 10 minutes.

Forwarding address for physical mail

For physical mail forwarding, the most important thing to know is the address where you want your post forwarded. This can be an address in the UK or overseas, although post forwarded to countries outside of the UK will take longer to arrive. Costs for forwarding vary depending on the mailing/shipping fees.

Note: For digital forwarding, we just require your email address. It's much simpler, and the cost is included in our service.

Mail forwarding services and classes

With physical mail forwarding, you will have all of your mail sent to your chosen address without the ability to filter out any unwanted post. With the Royal Mail redirect services, for example, there is a flat fee that varies by company size.

If you digitise your mail forwarding needs, all of your mail gets digitised and delivered to you. From there, you can choose to have the important physical mail items sent to your address.

This allows you to save time and money when managing your mail.

Mail tracking

For physical mail, this is usually dependent on the sender. Once in a mail redirection service, the tracking will be maintained if that redirection is provided by the same service.

It is highly recommended that a mail forwarding service you use for your business should include mail tracking to ensure your company’s privacy is never compromised.

At Hoxton Mix we sort your physical mail, scan it, bar-code it and track it under strict security standards. This means you know when it arrived with us, when it was processed and when it was sent to you. Tracking is now in your hands.

Benefits of digital mail forwarding

A large number of small businesses in the UK invest in a virtual office address that includes physical or digital mail forwarding. At Hoxton Mix alone, we have managed 60,000+ business accounts to date.

If you need to use a mail forwarding service to handle all of your post following a move, the most obvious benefit is that you don’t miss out on any correspondence as a result of people sending mail to your old address.

But that doesn’t cover the real benefits of using a mail forwarding service, especially one that digitises your mail.

Enhanced mail sorting and document management

With a digital mail forwarding service, the stress of sorting, searching, tracking and reviewing your mail is massively reduced. Hoxton Mix virtual office service includes your virtual registered office address, with an added benefit of state-of-the-art mail processing and document management services built in. Your mail gets processed and digitally forwarded to you within 1 working day.

Convenience and flexibility for your business

A virtual office service is an affordable and flexible way to set up a business address. A virtual office service with mail forwarding and digitisation offers you even more convenience by completing the solution for an outsourced office service. Your privacy is secured, your mail is forwarded to you, and you get a professional office address to use with suppliers and customers.

It’s incredibly easy to get started with your virtual office and start receiving your forwarded business mail with Hoxton Mix. Our plans are straightforward, can be cancelled at any time and we provide additional services to support your growing business needs. There are no unexpected contracts or renewals to worry about.

Security and privacy

When you register a business with Companies House, you have to give a registered address. That address is then published on the Companies House website for all to see and use - it is public information.

Using a virtual address with mail forwarding removes the risk of customers or people turning up at your family home address. Your business mail is also kept separate from your personal mail. Your business obligations are fully met with a virtual office address and your home is protected.

PO Boxes cannot be used for registering with Companies House, but virtual office addresses can be. This means you can secure your privacy while still promoting your business address. Customers of Hoxton Mix benefit from a prime London mailing address: Your Company Name, 3rd Floor, 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE.

Find out more about PO Box alternatives in the UK.

Considerations for using mail forwarding

When choosing your postal mail forwarding provider, there are a number of things you need to consider, from price and contract flexibility, through to what complementary services they offer and any additional costs for service volumes or add-ons.

Reliability

The most important reason for business mail forwarding is to ensure that you don’t miss any important correspondence, so you need to know that your service provider is going to send you everything they receive - reliably and in a timely manner. Ensure they have mail and document tracking in place.

No vendor is going to admit that they’re unreliable, so the best thing to do is check out customer reviews. Here at Hoxton Mix, we’ve achieved a rating of 4.7 from 170 Google reviews and 4.7 on Trustpilot from over 100 reviews. We have also securely processed over 1 million pieces of mail to date.

Price

Once you’ve identified reliable mail forwarding providers, it’s likely that the second most important factor to consider will be price; for private individuals as well as businesses, you need to ensure that there aren’t any hidden costs of surcharges relating to volumes processed/sent or additional forwarding services.

Our business mail forwarding services start from just £20/month (ex. VAT) for your virtual office address, mail scanning and sending it to you within one working day of receiving it. This includes tagging, summaries and full tracking. Our flexible contracts mean you can cancel at any time, and our price plans are simply structured with no hidden fees.

We can also send your mail physically for an extra fee, or you can come and collect it from our office.

By comparison, Royal Mail will charge £261 for just three months of business redirection to a UK address—that works out at £87/month! For a business diversion service - to support business moves - this cost goes up to £1,531 for 3 months.

Additional services to further enhance your business.

Already, a service from Hoxton Mix offers enhanced mail and document digitisation and management on top of simple mail forwarding. There are also other benefits that further increase the value proposition for businesses requiring a virtual office because they don’t have a physical office.

These include:

A prime London virtual 020 phone number with call forwarding to avoid having to publicise your personal landline or mobile telephone number.
Meeting room rental at incredibly competitive prices, available between 9.30am and 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.
A wide range of other supplementary services and products are provided by our amazing partners.
Get £75 and 1 year of free bank transfers with Tide
90% off Xero accountancy software for 6 months
Get 25% off with Slack Business+
And many more offers from our business partners…

Ready to find out more about what Hoxton Mix’s virtual office and mail forwarding services can offer your business? Check out the various products we offer here, or get in touch with our fantastic team. We’re here to help, and we’d love to hear from you, either by phone, email or live chat.