Are Royal Mail scared of the competition?

[Spud1]

So, a few weeks ago I was working from home for a day - and I got two post deliveries. One at about 12 PM (royal mail), and another at 2PM. By chance I saw the chap walking away..and it was a TNT delivery man. Same sort of post - in this case a bank statement and credit card bill - but delivered by TNT.

I figured it was quite cool (in the sad way that it is..) as it's finally on the way back to the "proper" postal service of old where you did get two regular deliveries a day (3 during December!)...but after initial interest I forgot about it.

Then today, I get a flyer through the door from Royal Mail which contains badly worded letter on one side, and a comparison of the RM and TNT service on the other. When you read through it is screams desperation, with sentences like

"The Universal Postal Service is protected under current UK legislation but its sustainability will be threatened if competition does not take place on a level playing field"

and other similar ones which to me read "please please don't start using other, cheaper companies for mail".

I'm in Manchester which I know is one of the "expansion" cities for TNT - but this flyer really made me stop and think about the future of Royal Mail. I wouldn't have considered it an issue before as TNT are largely business only at the moment - but this flyer implies otherwise and that RM think they are a threat. It's true that they probably are - TNT won't be completely hamstrung by Unions for example - but still...

Anyone else had one of these/noticed TNT starting deliveries elsewhere in the country outside of Manchester?

[wasabi]

Only Royal Mail for regular letters round here (Oxford).

The price of stamps has skyrocketed in the past ten years - not sure if this is because of cuts in taxpayer subsidy, or if RM is just badly run....

[directhex]

RM can run unprofitable routes, because they have a public sector remit.

Without RM, villages would cease to receive regular post, unless ~£5+ courier fees are paid per envelope.

[directhex]

The price of stamps has skyrocketed in the past ten years - not sure if this is because of cuts in taxpayer subsidy, or if RM is just badly run....

Stamp prices in the UK are unrealistically low compared to other comparable services globally

[LSG501]

Lets say RM isn't exactly great round here, only letters option, before the 2 to 1 post change, we used to get post before breakfast, now we get 1 we get it by 1PM if we're lucky and thats pretty much just junk mail.

Combined with the, to put it bluntly, complete rip off on stamps because of the 'petrols gone up routine' (Tesco's et al like this excuse too) I've actually gone digital only (eco friendly too ) unless requested by clients for business. If they want a printed copy I charge an 'admin' fee because I need to make time out to go to the post office etc. If it's good enough for big companies it's good enough for me

I don't mind a company making profit but the year on year increase RM/Parcel Force put on everything in the last year was ridiculous.

Perfect example - I had to send some trainers back, cost 10 quid via Parcel Force which I had to take to the post office or I could use Hermes which would cost me £3.50 (same as delivery cost) with collection from my door but would take a little longer to get there...

[Jay]

we only seem to get post every other day here!

[TooNice]

Stamp prices in the UK are unrealistically low compared to other comparable services globally

Here in Japan, sending a post card costs 30p for domestic and 42p for international. And I simply can't stop praising it because it's the best service I've seen from anywhere.

I did think that the special delivery cost felt a bit expensive at just over £6 (minimum), but it seems like this is on par with the UK.

I wonder if there is any economy of scale to be had though, Japan hasn't really moved on from paper forms compared to many places, so I suspect that the traffic is higher.

[herulach]

The issues not so much unions but RMS obligation o provide the universal service at a fixed price. 60p Manchester to London is probably profitable, but Manchester to john o groats? No way.

[wasabi]

Stamp prices in the UK are unrealistically low compared to other comparable services globally

Really?

We're in the top 10 most expensive places in the world to post a letter.

[MrRockliffe]

Royal mail deliver some stuff here, but there are often other companies such as my hermes and DHL here all the time delivering items. Royal mail is expensive, so what do they expect? If it's valuable and not signed for, you won't be seeing it again.

[jimbouk]

A postal service is a public service. Services which in isolation could be run at lower cost to the end user aren't so that expensive services are subsidised.

If it cost £2, or £5 even, to send a letter out of a major city then how much damage would that do to the overall economy?

Which private new player in the postal market would be happy with the restriction that it must offer the same services at the same prices UK wide?

[wasabi]

A postal service is a public service. Services which in isolation could be run at lower cost to the end user aren't so that expensive services are subsidised.

If it cost £2, or £5 even, to send a letter out of a major city then how much damage would that do to the overall economy?

Which private new player in the postal market would be happy with the restriction that it must offer the same services at the same prices UK wide?

Other side of the coin - if it only cost 20p to send a letter to towns and cities, there might be an economic boost.

[herulach]

Other side of the coin - if it only cost 20p to send a letter to towns and cities, there might be an economic boost.

There might (although I doubt it) but then I'd imagine that would be at least balanced out by an increase in costs due to the lack of cross subsidy of 'remote' deliveries.

[jimbouk]

Public services, they're about the greater good:

[scaryjim]

Really?

We're in the top 10 most expensive places in the world to post a letter.

But notice - based on the same article - that we're 5th or 7th in Europe depending on how you calculate it, for a "normal" first class letter. How many people send normal letters nowadays? What proportion of RM's daily item throughput is made up of ordinary letters posted First Class? There's no point comparing the price of a particular service if it's only used for, say, 1% of all posted items. Sure, those figures make good news articles, but they don't actually *mean* anything (the BBC article even has a "chalk and cheese" sidebar highlighting some of the reasons that their story is basically pointless ).

[virtuo]

I think it'd make postage a lot cheaper if letters were delivered to a local post office rather than to your door. It'd keep the post offices open, I could go and get my letters/parcels when I get home from work and you could optionally pay a small monthly fee to have them delivered to your door if you wished. Sort of like a free PO Box. I wouldn't mind popping in every few days to pick up my post if it meant I wasn't stung sending a few DVDs or small packages inside the UK.

Would cut down on post people hauling small packages around with their letters, tonnes of missed parcel cards and the delivery staff could be repurposed to more frequent collections and deliveries to the post offices.