Until last week, I could have collected parcels and dropped of marketplace sales for despatch at my local Royal Mail delivery office first thing in the morning, at lunch time, or in the evening. Now the hours have been slashed to early morning only, and it’s not just in my area this is happening.
Delivery Office Opening Times changes
For the record, below are the previous and current opening times for my local Delivery Office. You’ll need to check the Royal Mail website for your local Delivery Office’s new opening times,
Previous Opening Times
- Monday 8–10 am
- Tuesday 8–10 am, 12–2 pm, 4–7 pm
- Wednesday 8–10 am, 12–2 pm, 4–7 pm
- Thursday 8–10 am, 12–2 pm, 4–8 pm
- Friday 8–10 am, 12–2 pm, 4–7 pm
- Saturday 8 am–2 pm
- Sunday Closed
Current Opening Times
- Monday 08:00-10:00
- Tuesday 08:00-10:00
- Wednesday 08:00-10:00
- Thursday 08:00-10:00
- Friday 08:00-10:00
- Saturday 08:00-12:00
- Sunday Closed
Obviously this is a massive cost saving… or more importantly it prevents staff being distracted by customers collecting or dropping off parcels, and able to do other tasks like sort the post and actually delivery it. That’s quite important for me, as my regular postie has vanished in recent months and the route carved up with different bits being tacked onto the workload of two or three other posties.
Aside from not having a regular postie, the mail is at least arriving regularly now which is a relief after all the strikes… but twice in the past couple of months I’ve booked a collection which hasn’t taken place. That’s a huge annoyance as Royal Mail do everything in their power to force a collection when using Click & Drop. Once I rebooked the following day (and it was collected successfully) and the other time I drove to the Delivery Office and dumped the parcel in a Parcel Post Box.
The Parcel Post Boxes are just one of the ways Royal Mail are trying to mitigate against queues at Delivery Offices. That coupled with collections, safe places (unless you specifically opt out), delivery to neighbours, Parcel Collect, and automatic redelivery the next working day are steps which should reduce reliance on Delivery Offices. Royal Mail say that over 99% of parcels are now successfully delivered on either the first or second delivery attempt.
The biggest impact of reduced opening times is likely to be for businesses who rely on Delivery Offices to inject their ecommerce sales into the postal network. Even if there’s a convenient Parcel Post Box outside your Delivery Office, if more people use them the chances are that one day you’ll find they are full. Collection times don’t work for everyone, and late drop off times in the evening are the way that many work.
Businesses will either need to adapt their working hours, make use of the Post Office, or perhaps decide to use alternative carriers.
6 Responses
Even more difficult for customers to have to pick up their orders from Fail Mail, you know those orders we pay them to deliver which they don’t bother with but happily take money from you every month.
Had a customer have to go to Brighton Delivery Office to have to pick up a large letter order they clearly could not be bothered delivering the other week.
I just don’t use royal mail anymore. EVRI and Yodel are perfectly good services for parcels.
this is the right answer !
Using Click & Drop for Tracked items & dropping off at the Post Office, now incurs a 16p surcharge, which we’ll happily pay, rather than wait until 7pm the next day for the postie to collect or sometimes 2 days later
Twice now I’ve booked a redelivery due to missed post , both times it’s not turned up even though I’ve had email confirmation?
The 1 missed delivery I actually received 2 other parcels off our postie in person that same day I was on my front drive , I went back in the house for about half hr before deciding to pop out, as I went to go out front door there was a missed delivery slip ??? How is this possible?
A couple of times I have been to collect from sorting office to collect missed deliveries & asked why haven’t parcels been redelivered when booked
“No staff on that day ” was the reply? Strange as I’d seen the postie delivering post next door ??
Other times I’ve gone to collect & my parcels have been mislaid or sent back to another depot.. its taken over a week on occasions to finally get my parcel , very annoying when you’ve paid extra to the sender to receive earlier.
I’ve actually got a parcel rebooked for today … but here we go again no sign of it yet the postie has walked past our house delivering
twice I’ve scheduled a pick up and twice you’ve just… neglected to pick it up with no reasoning… come to find I can’t even properly drop it off now because of your ridiculous hour slash. It’s not reducing hours so you can focus on routes if you don’t even focus on routes! It’s just bad service. I seriously thought there was a strike or that royal mail was going out of business somehow.