Alternative to Royal Mail

[JonLake]

Hi there

No doubt you have heard or read about the upcoming postal price increases with Royal Mail? I am betting you feel as annoyed about them as I do !

I would be really appreciative of your help by testing the water so to speak with your thoughts on the possibility of a local mail delivery service - in principle!

If a local to local mail service (say, just for mail posted in a town for delivery in the same town) was set up in your town, would it be something that would be of interest to you.

Lower prices than RM, next day delivery, collection service, no contract, no minimum spend, no stamps needed would be just some of the features.

Look forward to your thoughts

Thanks in advance

Jon

 

[Esk247]

It doesn't work. Fine for local delivery but in general most need to deliver between towns or counties and that involves a courier service or a hub.

I thought about it myself a few years ago. Get a few vans, have them delivering parcels and letters between local villages. Doesn't work. The costs end up being much higher than RM because of the vehicle, staff, business, setup costs.

 

[JandJC]

Letters are done via e-mail.

Parcels are delivered by established Couriers.

Or you go and collect

Market closed.

 

[FreelanceSoftwareDeveloper]

It has been done as a lifestyle business, a cycle delivery within the town for example but I don't think it scales beyond that otherwise RM volume will win.

 

[smo]

It wont be viable and therefore wont work - so i'm out!

Seriously though it would be great to be cheaper and better than RM, but no-one has managed yet and I dont see it happening.

 

[MarketingEmpire]

Agreed with the points above. Although it would be great of course to have cheaper postage prices, the setup costs for a local delivery service would be far too high, especially at the start to get yourself established (and for people to trust your services).

For example, if you were to charge £0.25 to undercut RM and collected 2000 letters per day, that's only £500 to you. 1) The chances of 2000 town-to-town letters being sent per day are remote 2) a lot of the large companies use a franking/mailsort service and only pay £0.28-£0.30 3) you'd have to go a long way to get people to trust your new company over RM, even with the slightly lower costs 4) If you're sending a parcel to someone in your own town and complaining couriers cost too much ... go and deliver it yourself

All said and done - RM have an incredible, proven, and established infrastructure already. Due to fuel prices going up, this has a knock on effect to them which means they have to increase costs.

 

[10032012]

This is another case of people being naive and not doing market research.

Royal Mail offers a wide range of discounts mostly by three variables.... volume, location and speed. If you want to send many volume in one postcode district you get significant discounts etc.

One overlooked aspect is the scam of the alternatives... who can offer much cheaper services than Royal Mail although still gets delivered by Royal Mail.

This proposed alternative will only ever possibly work at Christmas with mass volumes of cards sent by individuals in particular avoiding last postage date restrictions by Royal Mail. This said, if people are sending cards to the same town, they would generally get in their car and hand deliver...

The only real potential is when you already have someone doing rounds... such as people delivering leaflets (yeah I hate receiving them too!) and those delivering newspapers. Royal Mail did this in reverse... to bump up profits they decided to deliver leaflets in addition to mail.

The bottom line is a single price point for mail is a nice concept but flawed in a business sense. Its relatively cheap to send from London to Glasgow regardless of the distance due to volume... the money really is lost when it comes to remote parts. Royal Mail have been suffering due to this warm-hearted British concept of being able to send post to anywhere in the country for the same price... very outdated. Postal services should have moved more to the zones used by courier companies... prices can remain "competitive" by making remote parts cost between 5-10p more to send and not proportion to actual costs. Others will argue it should be the profitable parts subsidising the less profitable (or run at a loss) parts - like at current.

 

[businessfunding]

I'm sure many people are agrieved by the price increases, but in reality RM still delivers phenominal value for money and I really can't see anyone offering a cheaper or significantly better service.

TBH my only real gripe is the misery of queuing in Post Offices.

Having briefly defected to a national parcel courier I have returned to Royal Mail as their service is both cheaper and more reliable.

 

[10032012]

Don't get me started with Post Offices!!

The Central Post Office (if you like - not officially but the most popular one in town centre) where I am, has 2 counters for travel / currency exchange and 6 service counters for general... over the last 10 years I have never seen more than 2 service counters open at one time.

What really annoys me is those with other work to do... they should be doing it where customers cannot see... not on display behind a counter that isn't open. Most people will understand they have to do work other than serving people - but its frustrating when waiting in queue.

The new regime at Royal Mail appears to benefit businesses - its consumers that will pay the price. But it is still overall great value.

 

[kulture]

The Royal Mail and Post Offices are two different companies. The increase in postage costs has nothing to do with the under manning of Post Office counters.

The real scandal is the removal of any liability to deliver mail from business customers. Consumers can claim if a letter/parcel is lost or damaged, business customers cannot. So the Royal Mail does not have to deliver a parcel any more, nor do they have to handle it with care. And a business can do NOTHING about it save go elsewhere.

 

[Rhyl Lightworks]

Hi there

No doubt you have heard or read about the upcoming postal price increases with Royal Mail? I am betting you feel as annoyed about them as I do !

I would be really appreciative of your help by testing the water so to speak with your thoughts on the possibility of a local mail delivery service - in principle!

If a local to local mail service (say, just for mail posted in a town for delivery in the same town) was set up in your town, would it be something that would be of interest to you.

Lower prices than RM, next day delivery, collection service, no contract, no minimum spend, no stamps needed would be just some of the features.

Look forward to your thoughts

Thanks in advance

Jon

This is the first step towards privatisation of RM, but at present they still offer a cheaper service than any of their competitors, for low volume letters and parcels averaging under 2kg to any part of the UK and in general abroad.

After privatisation, the market is likely to be taken over by very big (maybe foriegn owned) companies, which are likely to have many millions of pounds to throw at setting up a business, will only be in it for making money and have have very little concept of good customer service (just like privatisation of energy companies, telecommucations, etc.). Unless you represent one of these companies, this project is a non-starter both before and after privatisation.

Barrie

 

[JonLake]

Thank you to all that have posted so far.

However, many seem to be completely getting the wrong gist of this idea!!

I care not about queue lengths at Post Offices and am not looking to take on RM nationwide.

I am simply looking at local to local (within the same town) deliveries of mail (letters, large letters, packets and parcels) for Businesses at a cheaper price than RM and with a much better service.

I have done the sums and it does not take too many items to cost in so my main question I suppose should have been - do enough items get sent local to local?

Look forward to your thoughts

Jon

 

[Esk247]

Do enough items get sent local to local?

Look forward to your thoughts

Jon

No.

I've done the maths locally and the costs involved in set up and operations far outweigh what you can make from this type of project.

The amount of letters and parcels sent within one City will probably be less than the amount sent between Cities.

If you've got enough money available to buy a van, vinyl wrap it and get all of your insurance, a website setup for online ordering etc then give it a whirl. Just don't pin everything on it working.

You will have to offer 7 day a week service, you will need to take small parcels, you could probably offer a discounted service for local businesses. There is a window for PC collection and delivery between business sites and the repair shops. Not sure if you can make a living from it though.