Royal Mail....oh dear

[Bletchleyite]

Is it no longer the case that competing letter delivery companies are not only permitted in the UK but the Royal Mail is required to carry their letters for the "last mile"?

I'm sure it used to be. Though now I think of it, I'm not sure when the last time was that I saw such a letter.

Pretty sure it's only large volume letters.

 

[Cdd89]

You'd have to remove the letters monopoly to allow competition though. At present they're more like a privatised water firm.

Even as a monopoly, they're still providing a non-essential service except in niche cases, which is a key difference between them and (e.g.) privatised water. That limits what they can charge for postage. Furthermore, if RM were allowed to charge £10 for a 2nd class stamp, the country would sort itself out. Not that I'm suggesting complete deregulation, nor would RM do this as it would be a stupid business decision that loses them money; but it's an example of a non-problem in my opinion.

 

[lookapigeon]

I don't understand how Royal Mail can 'lose' letters to the volume and frequency that they do. Do they pretty much hire anyone off the street with a pulse these days and chuck them on the job?

 

[Peter Sarf]

Is it no longer the case that competing letter delivery companies are not only permitted in the UK but the Royal Mail is required to carry their letters for the "last mile"?

I'm sure it used to be. Though now I think of it, I'm not sure when the last time was that I saw such a letter.

And, I wonder, is it the last mile that is the problem with the Royal Mail delivery service.
As in the door-to-door part of the process rather than emptying post boxes, taking the contents to a sorting centre, sorting them and passing them to the sorting centre nearest to the delivery address for one more (automated) sort.

If it is the last mile or so that is the problem then no competing letter delivery company is going to rely on the last mile part of Royal Mail !.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 21:46 ==

I don't understand how Royal Mail can 'lose' letters to the volume and frequency that they do. Do they pretty much hire anyone off the street with a pulse these days and chuck them on the job?

Well apparently it is less experienced staff that mess deliveries in my road. I do not see the postman often enough but apparently the regular we had has left the job. We apparently get a variety of people now and they are easily able to overlook my neighbours and my own front doors. This is because our two front doors are on the side of our houses house (which are an end of terrace) whereas the rest all have front doors facing the road.

 

[brad465]

And, I wonder, is it the last mile that is the problem with the Royal Mail delivery service.
As in the door-to-door part of the process rather than emptying post boxes, taking the contents to a sorting centre, sorting them and passing them to the sorting centre nearest to the delivery address for one more (automated) sort.

If it is the last mile or so that is the problem then no competing letter delivery company is going to rely on the last mile part of Royal Mail !.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 21:46 ==


Well apparently it is less experienced staff that mess deliveries in my road. I do not see the postman often enough but apparently the regular we had has left the job. We apparently get a variety of people now and they are easily able to overlook my neighbours and my own front doors. This is because our two front doors are on the side of our houses house (which are an end of terrace) whereas the rest all have front doors facing the road.

One thing that can help rival companies with parcels is having collection lockers/locations to deliver to. These are more efficient for the last mile and thus often cost less in postage, plus they have the added benefit that recipients don't have to worry about being at home when the delivery is due. This of course is harder to do with letters given the scales involved.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One thing that can help rival companies with parcels is having collection lockers/locations to deliver to. These are more efficient for the last mile and thus often cost less in postage, plus they have the added benefit that recipients don't have to worry about being at home when the delivery is due. This of course is harder to do with letters given the scales involved.

Royal Mail does too, and you can divert to the post office too.

 

[Gonzoiku]

I once placed a postcard at Preston station into a letterbox on the side of the Whitehaven-Huddersfield TPO departing at 23:15. It was delivered in Cleckheaton at 07:35. The stamp cost 4.5p. That was 1974: an altogether different world. My friend still has the card!

4.5p!! That must have been at least 1p surcharge for the TPO. Used it myself more than once at Kings Cross for letters to Edinburgh

GZ

 

[35B]

Does the king have any say in the matter? I've genuinely no idea, is there any law preventing me from setting up a company called 'Royal Felt Tip Pens Ltd?' What if my surname were Royal?

I've been told that all new stamp designs have to be approved by the King. The link is I believe enshrined in law, and also relates to the use of the Royal Cipher.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Friday at 13:38 ==

Is it no longer the case that competing letter delivery companies are not only permitted in the UK but the Royal Mail is required to carry their letters for the "last mile"?

I'm sure it used to be. Though now I think of it, I'm not sure when the last time was that I saw such a letter.

Competitors are allowed to deliver the final mile, but the cost of doing so is prohibitive and the only company that tried pulled out.

Because Royal Mail have an effective monopoly on this, their wholesale business is ring-fenced from the main retail business, and subject to a whole different layer of regulation.

 

[Buzby]

I've been told that all new stamp designs have to be approved by the King.

Certainly this is becoming an increasing irrelevance due to the sale of ‘traditional’ stamps being considerably diminished as pre-purchased QR codes now the primary method of paying for postage. Similarly sale of special stamps has plummeted and I did hear that RM are now able to print/issue as little as 500 on a bespoke basis, ramping up should they become popular. This of course means collectibility suffers as by definition they never be ’rare’ like the issues of old.

 

[35B]

Certainly this is becoming an increasing irrelevance due to the sale of ‘traditional’ stamps being considerably diminished as pre-purchased QR codes now the primary method of paying for postage. Similarly sale of special stamps has plummeted and I did hear that RM are now able to print/issue as little as 500 on a bespoke basis, ramping up should they become popular. This of course means collectibility suffers as by definition they never be ’rare’ like the issues of old.

The relevance remains, in that it is a constraint on how Royal Mail may operate. I agree on what that means for the collectors market

 

[jon81uk]

The relevance remains, in that it is a constraint on how Royal Mail may operate. I agree on what that means for the collectors market

Is it really a constraint?

 

[35B]

Is it really a constraint?

In practice, yes - if only just bureaucratic

 

[zero]

It costs £200 a year to collect all the crap that RM outputs these days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_commemorative_stamps_2020–2029

Then when you pass away, your collection gets auctioned off for 25% of its face value. Although with the way things are going, the price of a 1st class stamp (if it still exists) may have increased by more than 4x in a decade or two from now.

Last year my friend purchased a collection of every stamp that RM had issued since decimalisation to around 2015, painstakingly curated in a lovely album with individual labels. With some regret he destroyed the album and began using the stamps for postage.

The majority of those stamps were those with a value rather than 1st or 2nd, so after inflation the collector's heirs probably received around 10% of what he originally paid for them. Though, the collector may have been mollified to know that at least some of the recipients of the packages mailed by my friend appreciated the use of diverse old UK stamps.

 

[HSTEd]

I think that now that it is merely a private company operating in a extremely competitive market, it will probably not survive.

It will be bled to death competing with businesses without a universal service commitment and who do not have a strongly unionised workforce.


In a world where rapid and effective delivery of packages is arguably more important than it has ever been, this seems to be a great shame.
Instead we have a race to the bottom built on unsafe practices and human misery.

 

[_toommm_]

They are absolutely useless. Where I live in SW London, they haven't delivered post in over two weeks, and I was waiting on a good few very important letters. My other half had to go to the local sorting office to get our post, and there wasn't even an apology or explanation to her as to why they aren't delivering.

 

[GusB]

Just to add a bit of balance to the thread, I can't really complain about the service that I receive from Royal Mail. My post, if any, generally arrives at the same time each day and the posties are always friendly. Maybe it's because I live in a rural area - who knows?

One thing I have noticed lately is that many of its vans haven't actually been in RM livery. For the last couple of months they seem to have been plain white, or they've carried the livery of one of the large rental companies. I was quite surprised the other day when a red van actually turned up.