Royal Mail is planning to axe Saturday letter deliveries and signed for parcels under a major shake-up of services.
Simon Thompson, the postal service’s new UK boss, is looking at the controversial changes as part of a six-month review.
The review is said to be reconsidering Royal Mail’s entire product offering and comes as it attempts to modernise and drive through big cost savings, and any decision to scrap Saturday letter deliveries and signed for parcels would need changes to the law.
Royal Mail is currently required to deliver letters for a fixed price, six days per week, under a universal service obligation (USO), but with letter volumes in decay, bosses argue this requirement is antiquated and leaves Royal Mail at a disadvantage versus competitors such as DHL and Amazon.
Instead, they want to focus energies on the parcels industry, which has been turbocharged by online shopping throughout the pandemic, but despite this, Royal Mail bosses are said to want to scrap tracked, signed for packages because they’re costly to deliver, with numerous customers happy for parcels to be left in a safe place if they’re not home.
Ofcom, the communications regulator, has now backed the plan to scrap Saturday letter deliveries in principle, and it said that consumer demands could still be met following the change, which could save Royal Mail between £125 million and £225 million.
Ofcom said the decision on amending the USO was ultimately up to MPs, but the Communications Workers Union, which fears job cuts if services are trimmed, has previously said decreasing letter deliveries would be inexcusable.
Amazon, DPD, Hermes et cetera don’t deliver letters or walk the streets as Royal Mail do, and I’m not quite sure how cutting out Saturday deliveries would be modernising, and in the end, we will be having our letters delivered by Pony Express, and what ridiculous bunch of dimwits are out there running our Royal Mail?
And if Royal Mail stops providing their Signed For service, numerous people won’t use them again because there will be no point and it will be more economical to use other delivery services, and they’ll be able to send larger packages for the same money.
Royal Mail is currently the Waitrose of the delivery services, but if it wants to reduce its services, then they need to decrease its costs, and it’s hilarious how they always want to make a profit, yet they need to cut their costs, and it’s a shame to see Royal Mail fade away like this.
And here comes that word modernise again – it sounds benign, doesn’t it, but it’s probably a euphemism for lower pay for workers, more generous bonuses for bosses, and a lot worse services for the customer, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Amazon, DPD, Hermes et cetera eventually take over the postal service because they appear to knock on doors more than the postman does.
They’re not modernising, they’re deteriorating and drowning and other courier services are sweeping in to pick up the slack, so this is just going to be another nail in the coffin for them, and basically, they’re moving out of the parcel market entirely, but let’s not try to gloss over it!
And to be fair, charging more for worse services does appear to be the standard global definition of modernisation and improvement these days, and it appears that providing fewer services is modernising.
