Royal Mail could set up a mail delivery day website to enable consumers to check which days their mail is due to be delivered. The Guardian reports the service would allow consumers to input their postcode to discover if they’ll get mail on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or a Tuesday and Thursday, which would alternate each week.
This mail day delivery website has already been compared to a council bin collection service in it’s functionality, but although the comparison might draw a wry smile from those for whom a delivery company has used their bin as a safe place, will become important if Ofcom proposals come to fruition.
Ofcom are considering allowing Royal Mail to cut 2nd Class Saturday deliveries while maintaining a next-day First Class service six days a week and only deliver 2nd Class on two or three days per week. They will decide if cutting the services would still meet postal users’ needs, ahead of consulting on proposals early next year.
It’s worth noting that your bin collection is currently considerably more reliable than Royal Mail. A mail delivery website might tell you which days you can expect post, but based on Royal Mail quality of service reports there is no guarantee that your post will actually arrive on time. Our hope is, that if Ofcom allow Royal Mail to offer a more relaxed service for 2nd Class Post that the associated costs savings would mean it might arrive later than in the past, but that it would actually arrive on the day it’s scheduled to be delivered.
Seeing as much of ecommerce is delivered by letter (or large letter), this would have a big impact on estimated delivery times displayed on marketplaces and websites. Platforms would have to build in a postcode checker and a look up in order to display ETAs to consumers and this would all have to take place on the fly taking into account the likely despatch date and delivery date for 2nd Class items.
