letters down around 8% why profits halved?

[gand]

Yeah letters according to RM have been falling by 5-8% for the last 15 years. There should be very little mail left but there is still lots of letters?

[Dorset Plodder]

Must be coming up to the end of the Finacial Year? RM always start pleading poverty when it's time to start negotiating for a pay deal!

[crimson king]

Yeah letters according to RM have been falling by 5-8% for the last 15 years. There should be very little mail left but there is still lots of letters?

Exactly! So, in the olden days was there the equivalent of a box or two of sequenced and two or three boxes of IPS every day on a duty?

All I keep hearing is 'letters are down' yet I'm going up most people's paths most days with something. I get that people email/text or whatever rather than pen a letter, but I bet in those olden days there weren't as many catalogues, promotional letters and what have you.

It's all smoke and mirrors surely. If letter volumes are down why are we sorting and tying up so many every day? You never hear a long serving postie saying how hard the job was in the olden days because of all those letters we don't have today. On the contrary, it's generally considered that the job used to be a breeze.

Keep telling me letters are down. I'll keep wondering why there's so many in my bags, as those things wrapped in rubber bands aren't all packets. Those heavy bundles are full of...letters, or the modern equivalent thereof.

Something stinks.

[SpacePhoenix]

Keep telling me letters are down. I'll keep wondering why there's so many in my bags, as those things wrapped in rubber bands aren't all packets. Those heavy bundles are full of...letters, or the modern equivalent thereof.

Technically a sizeable chunk of what MCs send out to DOs as packets are actually large-letters.

[Tman]

Keep telling me letters are down. I'll keep wondering why there's so many in my bags, as those things wrapped in rubber bands aren't all packets. Those heavy bundles are full of...letters, or the modern equivalent thereof.

Your choice to stick with the old "letters aren't down" call if you like, but it's not reality. Notice how many MCs and now MPU's have closed over the last decade or so?
Apart from which, other than junk mail who sends letter these days? Even Christmas cards are noticeably fewer year on year.

[crimson king]

Keep telling me letters are down. I'll keep wondering why there's so many in my bags, as those things wrapped in rubber bands aren't all packets. Those heavy bundles are full of...letters, or the modern equivalent thereof.

Your choice to stick with the old "letters aren't down" call if you like, but it's not reality. Notice how many MCs and now MPU's have closed over the last decade or so?
Apart from which, other than junk mail who sends letter these days? Even Christmas cards are noticeably fewer year on year.

I can't and don't disagree with any of that. But, other than packets, what's all that other paper s**t in my bags that never seems to become lesser or lighter?

[Post69]

The job us f****d and we all know it now,a shane but its over .....

that's a bit strong! My condolences to your work colleagues for having to work with someone with that attitude (especially Shane!)

[NewPostieUK]

If Royal Mail made £5Billion and invested £5Billion and a pound, they'd claim to be making a loss.

[postieblueshirt]

I started in 1995 and I'd say even then very few people wrote letters we've always had junk mail in different forms I think there's a bit less now but it's nothing new that there's no hand written letters

[SpacePhoenix]

There's been a noticable drop in the amount of letters, it dropped off a lot when the GDPR regs kicked in. The target number of items for a sequencing batch is something like 5,750. If you exclude bulk postings, it's often very rare that we get that amount

[tractorboy2]

How do they actually measure the volume of letters ?

[PostmanBitesDog]

How do they actually measure the volume of letters ?

tractorboy2, the link below is a PDF document on the most recent OFCOM reporting of Royal Mail's letter and parcel deliveries. (It's ninety-four pages, by the way. )

Annual Monitoring Update On The Postal Market
Financial Year 2018-2019

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/ ... -18-19.pdf

[tractorboy2]

Thanks for that , but the bit I read didn't actually say how the volumes are counted , and I can't be bothered to read anymore.

[SpacePhoenix]

Thanks for that , but the bit I read didn't actually say how the volumes are counted , and I can't be bothered to read anymore.

Mech mail is counted by the machine. All other mail each mail stream had an "Average Container Fill" (ACF) for a given type of container. When the container gets MIST'd along with any part fill, it's the ACF x whatever the fill level is. Tracked and SDs will be counted as they are scanned

[grchpo]

The costs probably come from implementing the new ''parcels strategy'' buying or leasing the land, property and equipment for the new parcel hubs.

Also further to my theory that RM are doing everything possible to make income and profits look as poor as possible at the moment, has anyone else noticed a marked drop off in the amounts of D2D's we've had these last 2-3 months? In that time we've only been getting 1 lot a week at the most rather than the usual 3+ lots.

My suspicious mind thinks RM are currently turning down D2D contracts from customers as part of their plan to make income and profits look poor.

I've got 4 so far for next week, wish I was at your office