Oh dear Royal Mail

[Brain Fury]

There are massive opportunities for RM in the medium-large parcel market but they don't want to know. All they want is a thousand small packets per shroud to maximise profit.

RM have the network, the knowledge, the staff to do it for a reasonable price yet let 'couriers' who are often un-uniformed people using their own cars help themselves to the business instead.

It's pure greed, I delivered a Saturday Guaranteed SD letter last week, the postage on it was just under £11. For a letter!

So are you saying that the medium to large parcel market would reduce our profit? That doesn't sound like a massive opportunity.

[fishtank]

The courier delivery model in my area includes using kids, normally family members as "runners" to maximise the number of parcels delivered. Just how much these kids are being paid if at all is anyone's guess but it's not a delivery model i would like to see held up as industry best practice.

Of course your average customer doesn't give a s**t about explioting children as long as they save a couple of bucks.

[El-Bandito]

AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH
E-mail Moya instead of letting us know how much you despair of RM, failing that....Get a life.

[dvbuk55]

The fact of the matter is RM are a long way behind the competition in technological terms. Today we had probably close on 400 tracked items on which the 95% delivered is being based and the reason for that is, apart from Specials, they are the only items we can specifically say have or have not been delivered. Now how many untracked items did we deliver/not deliver today - Christ knows but if each delivery had 25-35 small packets/parcels it would be over 2500. Now what we need to be able to do is track each and every item much like the competition. For that we need investment and even then we are still pricier than the competition.

[britwrit]

The courier delivery model in my area includes using kids, normally family members as "runners" to maximise the number of parcels delivered. Just how much these kids are being paid if at all is anyone's guess but it's not a delivery model i would like to see held up as industry best practice.

Of course your average customer doesn't give a s**t about explioting children as long as they save a couple of bucks.

Puts a whole new spin on "take your kids to work" day...

[enskied]

I send out a lot of parcels and have switched to heremes from royal mail and out of 200+ parcels with hermes only 1 has gone missing, that compares with 6 out of the last 9 I sent with royalmail.plus they are tracked so you know where they are unlike royal mail , I was always telling customers to check with the delivery office as most of the time they would be left as they had no staff to deliver them.

Bullshot , every word in your post

[datasaint]

I send out a lot of parcels and have switched to heremes from royal mail and out of 200+ parcels with hermes only 1 has gone missing, that compares with 6 out of the last 9 I sent with royalmail.

Statistically that's an unfair comparison given the low number of RM packets, not to mention you are comparing two different services. If you'd sent them tracked via RM that'd be a fair comparison.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH
E-mail Moya instead of letting us know how much you despair of RM, failing that....Get a life.

Strange advice on a forum designed for people to sound off about issues that concern them. Of course, although we encourage people to discuss whatever draws their attention we don't force anyone to read them.

Perhaps the reason you did, even though the subject apparently does not interest you, is that your life is perhaps bereft of other attractions. May I suggest taking up a hobby, other than patronising put downs, it may prove more beneficial to your wellbeing.

[Budfrog]

Christmas will be the real litmus test as to how well the competition are doing. I don't go along with 'You Get What You Pay For' or the comments that describe most other carriers are being cost cutting amateurs as there are some very good parcel delivery firms who are providing excellent value for money together with a reliable service (DPD/UPS etc) so there is a real cause for concern as make no mistake, this section of the market will make or break RM.

Ploughing money into WCM whilst deliveries are failing walks just demonstrates that the business priorities are wrong. To compete on price RM will need to continue to modernise and this will undoubtedly mean rationalising and streamlining the business, but it mustn't be at the expense of the frontline operation from collection right through to delivery.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

The biggest problem, well as seen from someone on the shop floor, is that Royal Mail are trying to jack of all trades and master of none. They rae trying to beat out DPD and UPS but their own PDAs and Software are woefully inadequate. They are also trying to be the cheap and cheerful delivery firm such as Yodel, Hermes et al, the problem there is that they don't allow Posties the same level of freedom to doorstep, (I don't think we should) or decide if its applicable to leave with a neighbour (its mandatory to try now). They are also trying to be the middle of the road couriers like CityLink or Interlink, but because we deliver letters as well we at best only match them, we don't beat them.

Royal Mail needs to decide where it wants to be in the market and what its USP is, and it needs to invest in that area. Doing everything on a wing and a prayer, and with a slap dash approach to packets aggravated by lapsing rounds only confuses customers, staff and clients. DO something well and you are remembered, do everything averagely, no one remembers.

[deristrong]

As a regular e-bayer I'm faced with this choice for a 3kg packet; Royal Mail £15.85 Hermes £5.48

[Budfrog]

As a regular e-bayer I'm faced with this choice for a 3kg packet; Royal Mail £15.85 Hermes £5.48

Choice of carrier isn't merely down to price ... I'm sure for more expensive sales you probably consider other carriers.

However just to illustrate the current situation I have just been on both Parcel2Go.com and Royalmail.com to get a quote for a 3kg Packet 50x20x20CM - Medium Sized:

NEXT DAY DELIVERY

£7.79p - UPS (Drop off at Access Point - £5.94 Access Point to Access Point)
£8.10p - Yodel (Home Collection)
£11.70p - City Link (Home Collection)
£11.70p - TNT (Home Collection)
£11.99p - UPS (Home Collection)
£13.79p - Parcelforce 24 (Home Collection)
£15.59p - Parcelforce AM (Home Collection)

Note: Hermes could only provide a 2 day delivery which was £5.28p

£15.85p - Royal Mail 1st Class
£16.96p - Royal Mail 1st Class Signed For
£26.60p - Royal Mail 1st Class Special Delivery

[postslippete]

Royal Mail needs to decide where it wants to be in the market and what its USP is, and it needs to invest in that area. Doing everything on a wing and a prayer, and with a slap dash approach to packets aggravated by lapsing rounds only confuses customers, staff and clients. DO something well and you are remembered, do everything averagely, no one remembers.

I completely agree. Our special delivery used to be a USP (in the days when we had designated drivers who did specials, bulk calls and large packets) but everyday I see lino's messing around trying to find staff to deliver the 9am specials in an adhoc fashion.

And as for the guaranteed 1pm specials, well we had 4 failures last week in our DO. Its no excuse but I guess its because staff are dashing round doing tracked, large packets, letters and then lapsed deliveries on top !! If the specials are at the end of a shared van run, for a lot of staff it probably gets delivered after midday.

[thehobbit]

personally i use" collect plus "take to a local shop just round the road for me tracked and insured all the way might be a bit slower but to the door £6.19 for a 2 to 5 kg ,or another local shop near the delivery point no problems so far

[wearewolves]

inpost via p2g is another cheap method last time i checked upto 5kg £1.79.
print at home self label and take item to one of there lockers...
tracked and signed on delivery