WHITSTABLE CUSTOMERS BOYCOTT AMAZON IN ROYAL MAIL PROTEST!

[juliew]

A letter I have written and sent to Amazon today on behalf of Whitstable's campaign to save its delivery office.

Dear Amazon,

We would like to inform you of an important dispute currently taking place between the people of Whitstable and Royal Mail.

Royal Mail wants to close our delivery office and move it eight miles away to a congested corner of Canterbury, off a major roundabout where traffic coming in from Margate and Herne Bay meets traffic coming in from Whitstable, and where a four lane carriageway does a 90 degree turn and becomes a single lane tailback attempting to force its way into the narrow confines of this ancient medieval city.

This is not only bad for the people of Whitstable, who will be required to make a 16 mile round trip through all this congestion to pick up their undelivered items (including their Amazon packages) but it will be bad for the people of Canterbury too, who will have to put up with up to 50 private vehicles bringing postal staff into their city each morning and 22 postal vans driving in and out at peak times through this notorious traffic black spot - not to mention cars driven in by the public when picking up their undelivered mail.

There are 50 workers in the Whitstable office so this amounts to 1152 extra miles driving every day just to get our postal workers to and from their rounds. That’s 5760 extra miles a week, or 288,000 extra miles a year. Can you imagine the damage this will do to the environment, not to speak of the health of the people living on the estates around the Canterbury office?

We are not happy with this, neither the people of Whitstable, nor the people of Canterbury. Consequently we’ve been running a campaign for the last nearly two and a half years, trying to get the Royal Mail to see sense.

We’ve written hundreds of letters to all the agencies: to the Minister, to the regulator, to consumer groups, to business organisations, and to Royal Mail itself, including to CEO Moya Greene. We’ve held three marches and four public meetings. We’ve collected over 5,000 names on a petition. We’ve written letters to the newspapers and had our campaign featured on TV and on the radio. We’ve sent a cross party delegation of our councillors up Royal Mail head office to negotiate on our behalf. Our postal workers have gone on strike – a strike which, unusually, was backed by the people of this town, who congregated outside the delivery office in their hundreds to show their support.

There could not have been a more determined, a more colourful nor a more vigorous campaign to keep this much loved and valued service in our town, but, for all of that, Royal Mail seems intent on stonewalling us at every turn. They ignore our letters, reject our requests for meetings and show nothing but contempt both for us, the people of Whitstable and Canterbury, and for our elected representatives.

We asked ourselves why would such a high profile company show so little interest in its customers’ needs?

Then we discovered the truth.

The reason Royal Mail is not interested in us as customers is that they don’t regard us as customers. We are merely the recipients of the mail. The Royal Mail’s customers are you, and people like you, Amazon, the companies who send their products by the mail.

That is why we are writing to you now.

We may not be the Royal Mail’s customers anymore, but we are your customers. We may have little influence over this arrogant company, but we have an influence over you - a consumer's influence. For this reason we’ve decided we have no choice but to boycott Amazon if Royal Mail goes ahead and moves our delivery office against our wishes.

This isn't your fault, it's wholly the fault of Royal Mail, so we would like you to know that we will shortly be taking to the streets with a petition. That petition will be addressed to you, and will inform you of our intention to stop buying goods using your website for the foreseeable future if Royal Mail continues with its plans.

We will be contacting the 5,000 signatories of our original petition and inviting them to join this action. We believe that support for this will readily be given as feelings are running so high on this issue.

While we regret that Royal Mail's intransigence in forcing through this move would have a detrimental effect on your business, we do believe that companies like yours can lead the way towards a sustainable future. It is now up to you to act and inform Royal Mail of the wider consequences of their action.

Yours sincerely,

Julie Wassmer

[hans solo]

can you not bin the d2ds as well

[TrueBlueTerrier]

can you not bin the d2ds as well

They are, IIRC they are doing a mass opt out.

[Stormproof]

Does anyone really believe Amazon will give a flying **** about Whitstable? I doubt it

[hantsman]

Does anyone really believe Amazon will give a flying **** about Whitstable? I doubt it

Has to start somewhere, at least they are having a go

[Stormproof]

Does anyone really believe Amazon will give a flying **** about Whitstable? I doubt it

Has to start somewhere, at least they are having a go

I agree and I think the D2D opt out is a good idea.....one thing at a time though, otherwise they will run out of steam.

[BernardBresslaw]

Does anyone really believe Amazon will give a flying **** about Whitstable? I doubt it

Amazon are bigger than Disney so I doubt it. Fair play to the campaigners though. I wish them well.

[Lincox]

Although Amazon may feel that a small town petition will not effect it,s income on any massive scale, the wider effect of such publicity may well have far reaching effects on its image and possibly other large internet retailers who may fear that this could escalate into something much more serious, and impact their profitability.
Fair play to the people of Whitstable.

[barrowc]

How many of our competitors (that Amazon and other companies could presumably use instead) currently have a delivery office in Whitstable? When did the people of Whitstable commence their boycotts of those competitors who never have had an office in Whitstable? When did the boycotts of companies whose mail is delivered by those competitors commence?

[juliew]

This action is as much against Royal Mail as Amazon. Should Royal Mail move our delivery office, all these actions will come into play, including the boycott of the d2d - which has been notified already.
This is a David and Goliath scenario as I have said before - we can either grumble or we can fight - and these 'customers' of Royal Mail are our weapons.
Many are already boycotting Amazon because of the company's tax status but that's a bed the company makes for itself. In this instance, Amazon will be suffering a loss of revenue if Royal Mail continues with its plans to move our delivery office. Let's see how both companies react to this.
Here in Whitstable, we are committed to not give in. We'll continue this fight even if Royal Mail pushes through this move. We're going nowhere. But if Royal Mail takes our staff to Canterbury, it won't be over for them as we will take the protest there too. These actions will simply continue so let's see how one grumbling appendix of a 'small town' can cause a life threatening situation regarding Royal Mail's plans for privatisation. It's Royal Mail management that stand to lose collecting fat bonuses for a successful move.
They may move our delivery office - but not successfully - as this will hit the national headlines, sooner rather than later. I'm already talking to the national press about the details of this situation. So bring it on, Royal Mail. As I say, we're going nowhere. Julie Wassmer.

[cyclemech1]

This action is as much against Royal Mail as Amazon. Should Royal Mail move our delivery office, all these actions will come into play, including the boycott of the d2d - which has been notified already.
This is a David and Goliath scenario as I have said before - we can either grumble or we can fight - and these 'customers' of Royal Mail are our weapons.
Many are already boycotting Amazon because of the company's tax status but that's a bed the company makes for itself. In this instance, Amazon will be suffering a loss of revenue if Royal Mail continues with its plans to move our delivery office. Let's see how both companies react to this.
Here in Whitstable, we are committed to not give in. We'll continue this fight even if Royal Mail pushes through this move. We're going nowhere. But if Royal Mail takes our staff to Canterbury, it won't be over for them as we will take the protest there too. These actions will simply continue so let's see how one grumbling appendix of a 'small town' can cause a life threatening situation regarding Royal Mail's plans for privatisation. It's Royal Mail management that stand to lose collecting fat bonuses for a successful move.
They may move our delivery office - but not successfully - as this will hit the national headlines, sooner rather than later. I'm already talking to the national press about the details of this situation. So bring it on, Royal Mail. As I say, we're going nowhere. Julie Wassmer.

[bandit650]

Amazon are delivered by other companies other than Royal Mail,if you boycott the company do you seriously think people will,if you lower the amount of packets by boycott then you would require less staff to deliver on Royal Mail &this would be a good idea?it's a double edged sword that you play with!
Don't think that people do not admire you for your fight but taking your fight to another office those people would be dragged in for something that is not their fault,it is Royal Mail that is pulling the punches.
We all wish you success in your fight but please remember those other staff in the other office are nothing to do with your fight & should be respected as you would be effecting more than just Whitstable staff.

[SP115]

This action is as much against Royal Mail as Amazon. Should Royal Mail move our delivery office, all these actions will come into play, including the boycott of the d2d - which has been notified already.
This is a David and Goliath scenario as I have said before - we can either grumble or we can fight - and these 'customers' of Royal Mail are our weapons.
Many are already boycotting Amazon because of the company's tax status but that's a bed the company makes for itself. In this instance, Amazon will be suffering a loss of revenue if Royal Mail continues with its plans to move our delivery office. Let's see how both companies react to this.
Here in Whitstable, we are committed to not give in. We'll continue this fight even if Royal Mail pushes through this move. We're going nowhere. But if Royal Mail takes our staff to Canterbury, it won't be over for them as we will take the protest there too. These actions will simply continue so let's see how one grumbling appendix of a 'small town' can cause a life threatening situation regarding Royal Mail's plans for privatisation. It's Royal Mail management that stand to lose collecting fat bonuses for a successful move.
They may move our delivery office - but not successfully - as this will hit the national headlines, sooner rather than later. I'm already talking to the national press about the details of this situation. So bring it on, Royal Mail. As I say, we're going nowhere. Julie Wassmer.

Amen.

[TeeferTiger]

I rarely get anything delivered by RM from Amazon...

[mountec1]

I rarely get anything delivered by RM from Amazon...

rubbish.