Time Running Out for Royal Mail

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://adamcollyer.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... oyal-mail/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Amazon has decided to step up its challenge to High Street retailers by offering delivery to local corner shops. The idea is to avoid the problem of people having their purchases delivered while they are out at work.

Consumers will be able to collect their orders from local shops that are often open until late into the night, instead of having to wait in for orders or coming home to find a delivery note telling them to collect their parcel from the nearest Royal Mail depot.

The scheme is being run by Collect+, who have a network of nearly 5,000 shops signed up to offer the service, and will also offer a returns service for unwanted items.

The Telegraph comments that the move will

ignite fresh concerns amongst traditional retailers

It will be igniting even greater concerns at Royal Mail. For Connect+ are not some small outfit linked to Amazon. Their parcel deliveries are carried out by Yodel. Yodel is a subsidiary of Shop Direct Group (which was formed by a merger of catalogue retailers Littlewoods and Great Universal) and consists of DHL’s former UK delivery operation.

Collect+ offer general parcel deliveries too. You take the parcel to one of those 5,000 Collect+ agents, just like you would take a parcel to the Post Office. They give you a receipt, and your parcel is delivered on to the recipient.

The parcels are fully tracked right through the delivery network. There is £50 compensation as standard, compared with £46 for Royal Mail parcel post.

Collect+ costs about the same as Royal Mail’s untracked parcel post – for example, £4.99 for a 1kg parcel compared with £5.30. You can also buy Collect+ services even cheaper through websites like Parcel 2 Go - for under £4 for a 1kg parcel. In this case, you enter the details of your parcel on their website, pay online and print a barcode, which you stick on your parcel, and then you take the barcoded parcel to one of the Collect+ outlets.

That figure of 5,000 outlets compares with 12,000 Post Offices – almost all of which are now run on a franchise model rather than directly by the Post Office.

It is not only Collect+. There are Hermes, Yodel themselves, Citylink and others.

So really the challenge is building, and Royal Mail’s time is running out in parcel deliveries.

All that is really left for Royal Mail is the delivery of letters. That is a declining business, as more and more communication is done electronically. And it is an unprofitable business at only 50p for a letter.

Even here, the monopoly will not last for ever. As Royal Mail pushes up the price of letter deliveries in a desperate attempt to stay profitable, they will begin to come up against the private operators here too. Even now, the cheapest service on Parcel2Go for a letter would be £3.30 – and that would be by Hermes, collected from your door.

It won’t be so very long before Royal Mail hits the buffers. In the long run, it probably will not survive without subsidy. As a country we need to decide whether we want to keep our Royal Mail enough to pay the taxes to keep it going.

[Straight4ward]

Time may well be running out for Royal Mail but not for this reason.

Firstly, he's overestimating the likely take-up of this scheme

Secondly, it seems to have escaped his notice, but Amazon's aren't the only packets we deliver.

Thirdly, Yodel's track record ain't great.

[oypostie]

and fourthly thay all chuck the small packets to us as downstream access

[DGP1]

and fourthly thay all chuck the small packets to us as downstream access

And large ones too now.

[deltaforce]

Go on to the amazon site and look at the forum page and what their customers say about Yodel.

[Lounge Lizard]

"The scheme is being run by Collect+, who have a network of nearly 5,000 shops signed up to offer the service, and will also offer a returns service for unwanted items." - so we all know where to tell people to take them when they say they don't want their Door To Doors.
.
"It won’t be so very long before Royal Mail hits the buffers." - that sounds more like a wish than a genuine prediction.

[newsubbie]

lost opportunity for RM and the post office network. Post Offices should be massively into click and collect - with RM providing the delivery and tracking.

Instead the inter business agreement means this is a no go area - despite it being one of the biggest growth areas for online businesses. The IBA means that RM would charge MORE for delivery to post offices than to a customers address (collect plus charge the same) - because RM have to protect their 'local collect' profits (the additional fee). what a missed opportunity!

[Grinder64]

Go on to the amazon site and look at the forum page and what their customers say about Yodel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVwIO8MS ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[fishtank]

lost opportunity for RM and the post office network. Post Offices should be massively into click and collect - with RM providing the delivery and tracking.

Instead the inter business agreement means this is a no go area - despite it being one of the biggest growth areas for online businesses. The IBA means that RM would charge MORE for delivery to post offices than to a customers address (collect plus charge the same) - because RM have to protect their 'local collect' profits (the additional fee). what a missed opportunity!

I have to agree with you newsubbie it is a missed opportunity although i do believe that these corner shops will start bleating once they realise that this particular type of footfall seldom translates into retail sales,i mean who stands there with a great big packet and orders two pints of milk and an overpriced loaf of bread to go?
Collect+ may then have to reassess their pricing structure.

[DGP1]

lost opportunity for RM and the post office network. Post Offices should be massively into click and collect - with RM providing the delivery and tracking.

Instead the inter business agreement means this is a no go area - despite it being one of the biggest growth areas for online businesses. The IBA means that RM would charge MORE for delivery to post offices than to a customers address (collect plus charge the same) - because RM have to protect their 'local collect' profits (the additional fee). what a missed opportunity!

I have to agree with you newsubbie it is a missed opportunity although i do believe that these corner shops will start bleating once they realise that this particular type of footfall seldom translates into retail sales,i mean who stands there with a great big packet and orders two pints of milk and an overpriced loaf of bread to go?
Collect+ may then have to reassess their pricing structure.

Not only the footfall but also space, can you imagine a small corner shop having to keep even a york of packets and then having to go, leave the shop, pick up the relevant packets and hand it over............like all things related to PP, it makes no money for the retailer and only causes hassle (in money).