Royal Mail users - what are you doing in December 2022?

simon field

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Feb 4, 2011
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Letters...important court documents...contracts that need signing, all delivered by the wonderful Royal Mail at a fraction of the price of other commercial profit making couriers!

We should be proud of RM, we should be demanding better conditions and improved infrastructure. It was paid for and built by the tax payers, the sods have cut it up and sold off the juicy bits to their mates. Just like they're doing with the NHS. We pay for it all and they sell it for a fat profit for themselves.
Just like the NHS, they want to keep doing the same as they’ve always done, in a world that bears no resemblance to what it was 50 years ago.
 
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JEREMY HAWKE

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    The parcel networks will be at full capacity over the next few days along with taking on additional business from the post office strike and we should all be aware that there is a high risk that items being sent after Friday may not make it to the customer by Christmas
     
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    fantheflames

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    Ordered something on Etsy. Seller uses Evri for delivery.

    Not the seller's fault, but a package arrived with my name on it. When I opened it, there were mini parcels inside with someone else's name on it... all the way in Hampshire.

    There was 6 presents in there for children.

    Looks like the local depo stuck the wrong address sticker on the parcel.

    I have no idea where my parcel is, never does Evri or the seller.

    But I tracked down the lady on Facebook whose parcels came to me, she paid for re-delivery and Evri picked up the parcel.

    What a sh*t show.
     
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    Karimbo

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  • Nov 5, 2011
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    Letters...important court documents...contracts that need signing, all delivered by the wonderful Royal Mail at a fraction of the price of other commercial profit making couriers!

    We should be proud of RM, we should be demanding better conditions and improved infrastructure. It was paid for and built by the tax payers, the sods have cut it up and sold off the juicy bits to their mates. Just like they're doing with the NHS. We pay for it all and they sell it for a fat profit for themselves.
    95p for a first class stamp these days. You're comparing parcels to letters. a DL letter probably takes up a hundredths of the weight and volume of small parcel.

    Compare RM parcels to EVRI parcels.

    Compare special delivery RM with DPD next day.

    There isn't much between them in price and service.
     
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    thetiger2015

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    Aug 29, 2015
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    95p for a first class stamp these days. You're comparing parcels to letters. a DL letter probably takes up a hundredths of the weight and volume of small parcel.

    Compare RM parcels to EVRI parcels.

    Compare special delivery RM with DPD next day.

    There isn't much between them in price and service.

    No, I'm comparing the variety of services RM offers that couriers do not and never will.

    We use RM, Evri and DPD for different levels of services. RM for our letterbox sized deliveries, Evri for standard tracked from eBay etc. and DPD for next day/expensive orders.

    No couriers will take a letter, so we send those by RM, courier prices for letterbox sized boxes are twice as expensive as RM because they have the smaller parcel option under 750g which works for us.

    DPD are crazy expensive for lightweight/low value items. Evri are almost comparable for letterbox but RM are just that bit cheaper on bulk pricing and they let people collect from their local post office. Something couriers don't do automatically, customers have to redirect to a parcel shop, which they don't do, we end up resending items from time to time.

    I don't see any couriers taking letters or magazines any time soon? Especially for under £2 per item.
     
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    macScot

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    May 11, 2020
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    I dropped a 1st class signed delivery business letter at the post office on Friday 9th Dec last week around 11 am and was told it should get to the destination by Monday or Tuesday due to the strikes, however, tracked it today and it is still sitting in the same office.
     
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    Lucan Unlordly

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    Feb 24, 2009
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    I dropped a 1st class signed delivery business letter at the post office on Friday 9th Dec last week around 11 am and was told it should get to the destination by Monday or Tuesday due to the strikes, however, tracked it today and it is still sitting in the same office.
    They were on strike on Friday and Sunday so nothing was going out on the Monday.
     
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    Karimbo

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  • Nov 5, 2011
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    Special delivery are being prioritised, but not signed for.
    signed for is a bullshit service.

    go for royal mail 24 (do not go form 48 or 2nd at this time - these have no chance of being delivered in 2022).

    royal mail 24 actually had progress tracking so they will give you some updates, please customer gets a text/email informing them the package in on its way.

    signed for gets sod all. it's just to confirm the parcel was delivered to customer (with signature) after the fact.
     
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    JEREMY HAWKE

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    there's only one winner from the strikes.

    amazon.

    independant retailers are screwed. Anybody who has more than 2 braincells will get all their stuff from amazon who use their own drivers and dont have strikers.
    There are a lot of winners in this strike My business is one of them
     
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    Karimbo

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    A bit unrelated and probably not of any use to anyone there.

    I just joined up to Ryde and booked in 2 shifts at my local royal mail delivery office, deli ering parcels on the 23rd and 24th. Help get people christmas parcels delivered on the run up to christmas.

    What CWU are doing is completely idiotic, Their workers have missed 8 days of work this December and hurt a lot of small business.

    I am booked into 8 hour shifts paying £188 each day for 60 parcels
     
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    Karimbo

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    My abandoned cart has shot through the roof. I have made it clear to customers that they wont receive their items before christmas. I wanted to roll something on the header, but dont have the time to do a branded header on the site. so I put out a blog post, put the info on the footer and on every delivery choice I put (delivered after xmas).

    they're just bouncing and probably going elsewhere to buy. Real PITA. Sometimes just being honest hurts.
     
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    Jade GH

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    Oct 4, 2022
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    We've helped a lot of retailers this peak with our multi-carrier software but the biggest benefit has been our relationship with Fast Despatch Logistics, we've been able to give access to solutions and shipping accounts that otherwise would have taken weeks to integrate in just a week.

    Overall I've been really impressed with their performance given the market right now and they've given us some fantastic rates for our customer base, can't fault them!

    Always happy to make recommendations/introductions and support if anyone needs it?
     
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    Ditso

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    Sigh. This is starting to take its toll on my business now. It's just getting worse and worse. I seem to get more emails from customers asking where their order is, than I get orders at the minute!

    Today I replied to a guy who's order was posted on the 6th Dec and he still hasn't even got that!

    With strikes today and tomorrow plus Xmas itself I guess the post will start to get back to normal when they return to work on the 28th Dec.

    Not sure of dates yet but I guess there will be more strikes through January?

    I started using Evri and they seemed pretty good, until a next day delivery with them went pear shaped.

    I have been unable to get in touch with a real person to even discuss this.

    If this industrial action is ongoing through the whole summer then I will have to change my way of working.
     
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    WaveJumper

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    Sigh. This is starting to take its toll on my business now. It's just getting worse and worse. I seem to get more emails from customers asking where their order is, than I get orders at the minute!

    Today I replied to a guy who's order was posted on the 6th Dec and he still hasn't even got that!

    With strikes today and tomorrow plus Xmas itself I guess the post will start to get back to normal when they return to work on the 28th Dec.

    Not sure of dates yet but I guess there will be more strikes through January?

    I started using Evri and they seemed pretty good, until a next day delivery with them went pear shaped.

    I have been unable to get in touch with a real person to even discuss this.

    If this industrial action is ongoing through the whole summer then I will have to change my way of working.
    Yes one gift I ordered off Amazon for my wife (and rather stupidly never realised seller was sending Royal Mail) on 7th December is obviously not going to arrive and the tracking number only tells me item was despatched. RM let alone sellers are going to loose a lot of business in the New Year.
     
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    japancool

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    Come the New Year, I will have to seriously look at switching if this carries on. We already have APC as a backup for express next day parcels, but nothing in place for standard delivery orders. At that price bracket, Evri seems to be the only option, and I don't want to go back to using them.

    They're fine if the order goes right, if something goes wrong, you're screwed. Then again, that's not much worse than with RM/PF.
     
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    Karimbo

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    Sigh. This is starting to take its toll on my business now. It's just getting worse and worse. I seem to get more emails from customers asking where their order is, than I get orders at the minute!

    Today I replied to a guy who's order was posted on the 6th Dec and he still hasn't even got that!

    With strikes today and tomorrow plus Xmas itself I guess the post will start to get back to normal when they return to work on the 28th Dec.

    Not sure of dates yet but I guess there will be more strikes through January?

    I started using Evri and they seemed pretty good, until a next day delivery with them went pear shaped.

    I have been unable to get in touch with a real person to even discuss this.

    If this industrial action is ongoing through the whole summer then I will have to change my way of working.
    I bit the bullet and paid a premium to upgrade everyone to royal mail 24 which is delivering OK.

    I have done christmas shifts through a delivery gig service called ryde and have delivered royal mail 24 parcels. yesterday and today, pretty much every parcel I was assigned was royal mail 24, not a single 48.

    They do have a few RM workers who arent part of the CWU who are doing deliveries.
     
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    Karimbo

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    Maybe @Newchodge can answer this one. According to the gov.uk website, you cannot hire agency staff to cover during strikes. So how come RM appear to be doing exactly that to deliver parcels?

    Law changed.

    Honestly it's not going to hurt the strikes.

    It took me 6 hours to deliver 41 packages. They paid me £188. I'm pretty sure they cost of postage for the 41 packages was less than what they paid me.

    The ryde app is shit (I delivered for amazon and their app is way better) so much more efficient and easy to use.

    RM deliveries relies on the drivers local knowledge of the area to deliver efficiently. Amazon app is designed so anyone can pick any random area and deliver without issues.

    The temp workers won't made a dent on the backlog.

    I think they're just getting parcels shifted with agency because parcels are way more volumeous and they need them cleared to keep their depots cleared.
     
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    Newchodge

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    Law changed.

    Honestly it's not going to hurt the strikes.

    It took me 6 hours to deliver 41 packages. They paid me £188. I'm pretty sure they cost of postage for the 41 packages was less than what they paid me.

    The ryde app is **** (I delivered for amazon and their app is way better) so much more efficient and easy to use.

    RM deliveries relies on the drivers local knowledge of the area to deliver efficiently. Amazon app is designed so anyone can pick any random area and deliver without issues.

    The temp workers won't made a dent on the backlog.

    I think they're just getting parcels shifted with agency because parcels are way more volumeous and they need them cleared to keep their depots cleared.
    This^^^

    They changed the law to allow the employment of agency workers. Generally it is all PR. How many agency train drivers or border force staff or nurses, do you think are available?

    They are talking about changing the law again to make strikes illegal in certain industries/roles. That will result in a large number of those people resigning.
     
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    Newchodge

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    I don't know about the others, but agency nurses are quite common. I remember being an in-patient and all the staff on the ward bar one were ageny nurses.
    That is true, but are there any spare agency nurses - agency nurses who are not currently working?
     
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    Newchodge

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    I heard on the radio there are loads of nurses coming out of retirement to do lucrative agency work. Their pensions aren't enough to meet the cost of living crisis so they're doing agency work to top up their incomes
    All of those agency nurses are working to cover vacancies. There aren't enough top cover striking nurses.
     
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