Royal Mail set to announce slowdown in parcels business

[Chitchat]

Problem is price! Royal mail needs to compete for the business on price and stop annual price increases like its a given. We are good at what we do, and better than most. We maybe a little behind with the technology side,but as long as its delivered people dont really care. Look at Amazon, Royal Mail created too big a margin that allowed them to set up their own delivery service and do it them selfs cheaper. Madness how can one company deliver its own goods and only its own goods and be cheaper than us?

[raikky]

royal mails pricing is silly. I know it cannot undercut on mail but on packets common. I delivered a couple 9am SDs today and looking on the parcel the price was 20 - 25 quid. same with sds. anything over a kilo and im looking at other options.i cant understand why RM cannot undercut its competitors on its parcels devision. unless there not allowed to.

as for track and trace ive had hundreds of items delivered to my house and never once looked at where my parcel is. At the most and what a lot of people want is a specific date for it to come by. dpd go one further and offer a time slot. they havnt let me down yet.

[SpacePhoenix]

as for track and trace ive had hundreds of items delivered to my house and never once looked at where my parcel is. At the most and what a lot of people want is a specific date for it to come by. dpd go one further and offer a time slot. they havnt let me down yet.

One courier (might be dpd) display a map which shows where the van with your item is and I think also shows how many parcels will get delivered before the driver gets round to delivering yours

[Budfrog]

as for track and trace ive had hundreds of items delivered to my house and never once looked at where my parcel is.

I have used the on line track and trace facility of various carriers when sending and receiving parcels, the former provides me with peace of mind that my parcel has arrived or it's progress in transit and the latter gives me a pretty good idea when to be at home if receiving a large item or one that needs a signature (as most do now).

As the largest carrier in the UK Royal Mail should be leading the way in providing an innovative parcel delivery service at the right price .... not falling behind smaller operators in the market. The lack of forward planning within RM just amazes me .... investment in automation for traffic streams that are in decline (CSS), Millions spent on WCM .... whilst parcel delivery is pretty much the same as it was 30 years ago (aside from Tracked).

[baldrick]

Is tracked important? I get books and the odd t-shirt/whatever through the post. As long as it's cheap and comes quick, I don't care.
Than again, I'm weird. Do most e-bay folk want tracked?

I don't need small items like books, cds and dvds tracked as the postie can just put it through my letterbox even if I'm out. But it is much better to have larger parcels tracked so I know on what day they are likely to be delivered, and I can stay in to receive them.

[Budfrog]

Is tracked important? I get books and the odd t-shirt/whatever through the post. As long as it's cheap and comes quick, I don't care.
Than again, I'm weird. Do most e-bay folk want tracked?

I don't need small items like books, cds and dvds tracked as the postie can just put it through my letterbox even if I'm out. But it is much better to have larger parcels tracked so I know on what day they are likely to be delivered, and I can stay in to receive them.

More and more firms and private individuals (eg eBayers) want T&T as it provides proof of delivery.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

We must be the only courier company in the entire industry who doesn't offer tracking of every single item as standard

If RM went down the tracking every packet route, which I believe is unavoidable then they'll have to employ more people or use the existing technology a lot more wisely.

I don't think we will be able to track every parcel to the door and deliver letters in an efficient way at the same time with the current delivery methods we have, unless automation of packets can be utilised down to individual walks. However, what they could do is use the current RFID technology to alert customers when their item arrives at an MC, when it enters the DO and when it leaves ready for delivery.