A new report by eBay says that Post Offices are essential to success for online businesses with 51% of businesses surveyed saying their local Post Office is crucial to their business.
For larger businesses this might seem strange as many will have daily collections and not visited a Post Office in years, but as many including myself will remember when we started out selling online the trip to the Post Office was part of a daily routine.
In spite of the increased competition 85% of online businesses still use Royal Mail services, with the main reason being the competitive prices. Whilst timed (am/pm/evening) deliveries are attractive cost of delivery services is still the priority for most businesses.
Whilst calling for greater competition to drive down prices and concerns
about the need for modernisation without strikes, only 26% of businesses think that mail services would be improved if the Royal Mail were sold off.
How reliant are you on Royal Mail? Do you still use your local Post Office or do you have your mail collected?
16 Responses
The Post Office should be forced to offer a collection service for all package carriers, not just Royal Mail and Parcelforce. The Post Office do after all consider themselves to be a seperate entiry to Royal Mail and therefore not part of Royal Mail.
Royal Mail competitors who wish to partcipate in any Post Office collection scheme should be obligated to take all packages offered to them under 2kg.
Royal Mail competitors could offer an online print your own postal stamp service if they are unable to provide their own franking or label equipment for Post Office counter staff to use.
Choice means competition. At the moment Royal Mail are the only option for many small businesses who ship less than 250 packages a month and who require daily collections.
even those that dont use Royalmail or a post office
would be hard put to survive if they were not around
it like saying we dont need water we only drink tea
I have to say we have gone with two different couriers now, DHL and Interlink and to be honest they are both as bad as each other, damaged items, lost items (5 in one day with dhl!) delivering to the wrong house and charging £21 when they return an item they haven’t even tried to deliver! Royal mail maybe a bit more expensive for special delivery but we have sent thousands in the past with one lost and that was it!
There are plenty of online businesses who aren’t involved in the delivery of actual goods. e.g. at work yesterday, a client asked me to post him a VAT invoice because his printer is broken. It was then that we realised the company’s been trading for two years and we haven’t bought a packet of envelopes yet 😆
I used to use my local Post Office, but as my business grew (as did the amount I was paying over the counter) it was made clear to me by the postmistress that my input was a nuisance. So I started with PPI and paid for collection and I never looked back.
I used to have a daily collection and PPI account but have had to downscale. I would now be lost without the post office. Although I do have to go to one slightly further away as the one nearest me used to lose so many items. I though it was Royal Mail, but once I changed to a different Post Office I have only had only a handful items not arrive in the last 6 months compared to over 300 items in the 6 months I used the other Post Office
Simply really……Royal mail & PPI are the way forward for all but the smallest of businesses.
If you are sending, say 30-50 items per collection/PO visit, it is so much cheaper & I DON’T HAVE TO STAND IN THE BL**DY que.
Most small business’s can open a Pre-pay account with RM.
The bottom line always ends up at the same place.
If you (as, with us) sell items from 99p up, there is no alternative to RM.
Once the P&P starts climbing up towards £6-7+ we currently use Citylink, who have (touch wood) not lost anything yet.
DHL somehow, have just gone to pot over the last 1-2 years.
As for 1 above, well I suppose PO could start a collection service for other carriers, But we already have Collect+, & frankly they would have to charge say 50p-£1 per item, otherwise we would end up with the stupid system of Uk-mail/TNT etc, with RM doing the ‘last mile’ for nothing more than a few pennies……again, & then we, as general users would pay hiher charges for standard RM services.
dont know if its our location or how royal mail sort ppi
but international delivery seems much quicker when sent using the local post office
90% of my sales weigh in at less than 100 gr. So there is no competion cost wise to RM.
I use a local sub-post office who are reliant on on-line sellers using them as they have been looked at twice for closure.
The main post office has 7 counters with an average of 1 hour queuing time !
If Royal Mail was sold off it would definately be worse for us customers. As a private company it would all be based on profits, just like other large companies, and the standard of service they offer would most certainly decline. I beleive their current standard of service is excellent and realistically we can’t expect anymore from them.
It has to be a case of shopping around and finding the provider that suits your company best. Royal Mail is established and highly experienced and generally first choice. But there are now many companies out there that can challenge Royal Mail on cost and efficiency.
Like anything it pays to shop around.