There was a radio phone-in last week that I tuned into and the focus was Royal Mail. It was regarding how they could find ways to save money and survive. As we know, the RM parcels business continues to do OK but the letters business, which has previously been massively profitable, has dipped in recent years.
Needless to say, there was talk of the universal service (which means that every address in the UK should be served regardless of location) and also whether the Saturday delivery should be scrapped to save cash.
The universal service, in my humble opinion, should be sacred. It’s vital that all households in the UK should be serviced equally by at least one delivery company and many rural areas rely on Royal Mail. One other possible mooted cost saving was scrapping the Saturday delivery.
In many other countries the post comes but 5 days a week and it could be a good saving to cut Saturday deliveries. And it must be noted that this is not a proposal currently on the table from Royal Mail.
But actually ditching the Saturday delivery doesn’t make much sense. Even if moving to a five day service does. Saturdays are a good day to deliver parcels on and find recipients in. Many sellers despatch on a Thursday and Friday too.
It seems to me that if any one day should be cut it’s Monday. I seldom get anything but a pizza leaflet on a Monday and without significant Saturday and Sunday collections, most things arrive on a Tuesday anyway.
What do you think?
10 Responses
To take away the option of Monday deliveries would be stupid.
It is the lightest day of the week for post, but there will still be millions of items of important mail that need to be delivered on that day.
If anything, it’s moving the other way – we see courier vans around on a Sunday even in mid Wales these days.
Besides, given that Ebay already considers Sunday to be a delivery day, imagine what axing Monday deliveries would do to on time delivery stats !!!!
I think cancelling Monday is a non-starter. Is there a way to reduce the cost of delivering to remote areas so its not loss making and a burden on the general business?
EG US-style post boxes outside homes so the postie does not have to get out of the van.
Many small businesses like myself rely on Royal Mail to delivery asap to keep up with competition from marketplaces such as Amazon who can deliver exceptionally quickly. With buyers all wanting their purchases almost instantly these days, dropping delivery days will result in more customers looking at alternatives to the small business who is restricted to 5 day a week deliveries.
Now – more than ever – Britain needs quality business infrastructure (road, rail, postal, fast internet etc). The universal postal service (6 or 7 days per week) should be part of that.
Monday would be the worst possible day to cancel post on, especially with eBay.
Customers are impatient enough for items posted on a Friday, making them wait an extra day would be a terrible idea.
Our Supplier [One of the Worlds biggest Co’s] doesn’t delivery on a Monday or a Tuesday after a Bank Holiday.
Another way for them to cut costs would be to revert to a one class postage systems. The same machines have to run twice at the moment to sort the mail, by using only one class of mail, they would just need to run continuously. You could still have guaranteed post but not 1st and 2nd class. I feel it would streamline the service we receive better and get post delivered quickly without machine changes. It would also mean that delivery timescales would be standard throughout online selling. A lot of my post arrives next day/day 2 even though it is first class.
Just a thought!