After eight months of discussions with customers and trade bodies Royal Mail are to roll out the new “Delivered By” mark on the vast majority of the 15 billion letters and parcels carried by Royal Mail annually. This will start appearing as early as June, but will be rolled out over a six month period to give customers time to use up existing stocks of stationary.
Competition in postal delivery raises the prospect of customer confusion if they don’t know which company to contact over issues such as misdelivered mail. More importantly it’s a matter of pride – 79% of posties said they would welcome “Delivered by Royal Mail” appearing on envelopes. The change, which will provide visible recognition of the work of Royal Mail’s 151,000 employees, is also backed by the Communication Workers Union (so hopefully no strikes this year!).
Printed Post Impression
The new mark will be applied through a change in the design of the Printed Postage Impression (PPI) – or postage-paid mark – printed on the envelope by mail users. It is designed to fit within the existing PPI area specified on the top right hand corner of the envelope avoiding the franking zone.
If you currently use a PPI stamp, print PPI labels or have your PPI image stored in a third party label solution such as Aimco Packing Partner then you’ll need to update by the 2nd January 2013.
Stamped and franked mail
From the end of June, Royal Mail will also print “Delivered by Royal Mail” on stamped mail and from 2 January 2013 on franked mail as part of the cancellation mark.
Downstream Access customers
The new mark will also be applied to letters delivered to homes and businesses on behalf of wholesale “Downstream Access” customers. Items that are sorted by hand will not carry the mark.
“We accept the decision RM has reached and we will work with our posting customers to assist them as appropriate in implementing the change.”
– Guy Buswell, Chief Executive of UK Mail
When fully implemented in January 2013, it is expected that more than 80 per cent of all items Royal Mail delivers will carry the mark; around 12 billion annually.
While mail services have been opened up to competition in the UK the reality is that Royal Mail are still doing the final deliveries (but of course for a lot less money). As Moya Greene, Chief Executive of Royal Mail said “The new mark ensures that postmen and women get recognition for the vital task they complete every working day”. And quite right too.
11 Responses
I use a 30mm x 30mm PPI label without the return address part, I get them made in bulk of 5000 so will still have lots of stock left by the 2nd of January 2013, I did see this mentioned on the web,
“For labels where space is limited, the two components can be separated but both must appear on the packaging or label.
For items being sent abroad, you have the option to only use the delivery speed indicator.
Can anyone confirm you could get away with having a separate small label saying delivered by royal mail after the deadline of 2/1/2013,
Thanks.
Honestly I can’t see many benefits from this. It already says ‘Royal Mail’ on the PPI, so I assume people know it has come through Royal Mail. Now I need to find a way to incorporate a larger image onto the address ticker.
If the ‘delivered by’ logo can be added separate (anywhere on the package) this will be a lot better but will mean i need extra stickers with this, meaning more expense and more waste.
Another pointless waste of time and money!
Just get on with delivering the mail instead of loosing it, pride is worth nothing when you have no customers left!
who gives a monkeys how its delivered and by whonas long as they get the sod
Why can’t Royal Mail provide an additional label like they do with air mail stickers,
Obviously there is someone at Royal Mail head office with to much time on their hands,
Since they crushed the discount on PPI to 1/2 of what it used to be it barely covers the £900 collection fee.
What is the point for all this, I know it is delivered by Royal Mail, cos there is stamp on the letter. Just like telling me to unzip and check before I go to male toilet.
Instead of “Delivered by Royal Mail” on the letter they ought to mark that space with an ad to at least keep themselves in the black. I wish USPS would do that instead of begging the government every six months to let them increase prices and yet still manage to lose billions of dollars per quarter.
This is just great – not, and a nonsense supported by market research that probably didn’t ask the right question or give a full account of the proposal.
1. I have just ordered a years supply of stamp labels, that somehow will need to be modified after January. For small business 6 months isn’t enough.
2. Are Royal Mail paying me for the time it will take to add an additional label so I can use up stocks of my stamp?
3. Are Royal Mail going to fund the cost of printing my stamp labels in a larger size to include the new message?
4. Am I being thick, or if the item comes with your mail delivery, isn’t it always delivered by Royal Mail, so what’s the issue?
5. Nothing against the hard working postie, but this looks like focussing on the internal company rather than customer focus.
I’ll also end up with a load of unusable labels come the start of next year, the PPI mark I currently use already has the words ROYAL MAIL on them so why the need for this?
I’ve emailed my PPI account manager and told her of my complaint, if everyone did the same then Royal Mail will have to listen and have a rethink.
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Am I missing something??
‘Items that are sorted by hand will not carry the mark’, ie: Packets.
Is this applicable to our standard PPI impression?, as like most, our labels are really on the limit on how much we can get on them, if the address is to long.
We use a standard label 99.1 x 38.1mm & because we use wordperfect are able to add the PPI to the label, print all at once & vary the PPI size too.
The default (and as far as I can make out ONLY) position for a return address using MS Word tools is in the same place as this stupid ‘delivered by’. Irritating for a very small business who don’t want to lash out on printed envelopes and franking machine logos etc.