Buying a Post Office and Potential Pitfalls

[oliver123]

I am looking at buying a main post office. It is quite a large investment for the lease. However, that isn't a problem. Basically, I am asking the forum if there are any members or friends of members who have either bought a PO or have managed one in the past and what are the obvious and not-so-obvious pitfalls. This PO has a 6-figure salary associated with it and was wondering just how the salary can be so high. I will admit I am a bit naive when it comes to post offices so any advice would be welcome.
Cheers!

 

[sfi001]

hi oliver,

im a sub postmaster and have worked in my PO for 20+ years.

the contract that i am on at the moment is the traditional contract, that Post office ltd (POL) want rid of. they want to replace it with 'mains' and 'local' contracts.

the traditional contract is made up of core payment and is topped up by transaction payments.

the 'mains' and 'local' contracts are made up of just transaction payments. (enhanced over the traditional contract)

POL are a law unto themselves and you are powerless to any changes they make to transaction payments.
POL have to tender very competitive contracts to gain business from the likes of dvla, royal mail, all manor of bill payment companies so that we can offer their services at PO counter, resulting in reduced transaction payments to the 'OPerator' (was subpostmaster).

my salary has been falling for 2 years now. why? because there is becoming less and less services that you can get at the PO that you cant get for better value elsewhere.

my advice would be dont do it unless you have a very strong retail offering attched to the PO.

im trying to get rid of mine after 3 generations of family ownership.

contact me if you need to!

kind regards,
SciFi

 

[Annoying Donkey]

You might find this story interesting....

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I can only echo what has been said, don't do it. You are effectively buying a business you don't own or control as it can be taken away from you at a stroke.

 

[Mahvni]

Also staffing costs for the PO section can be troublesome if its a high volume counter.

 

[David Griffiths]

The other issue is opening hours. POL seem to want offices to open much longer than traditional hours - something like 7 or 8 am to 9 pm. The business done in those extended hours might well not justify the costs of staffing. I know of at least one sub PO that has gone back to POL and said that it wants to cut to normal business hours or possibly give up the post office.

As others have said, the days of running a sub post office as a profitable business for life have gone

 

[Websitehandyman]

I know nothing about running a post office but know our local post office owner well and we often chat about business problems. His main problem seems to be staff doing things the right way. Naturally he expects a £10 an hour person to do the job like he does but that's another matter ;-)

He's just given up one post office, not because it was losing money but simply because he was getting to much stress. Have you concidered a nice dry cleaners or funeral home instead