Alternatives to Royal Mail – Royal Mail
by Chris Dawson
Whilst there’s little doubt that mail services will be severely disrupted during industrial action it’s worth highlighting what Royal Mail themselves are doing to keep mail moving through their network.
Royal Mail Premium services such as Special Delivery and Royal Mail Tracked items will still be delivered on strike days. Although delivery guarantees will be suspended during industrial action at most I’m guessing there will be no more than a day’s delay for premium services.
Over 900 managers and contract drivers will be drafted in to move mail around the country, and although business collections may be suspended but alternatives to getting mail into the system are Post Offices and Mail Centres which will remain open. Collections from Post Offices and pillar boxes may be less frequent than normal so best advice is to post as early in the day as possible.
Royal Mail have additional sorting and distribution capacity in the form of five large fully staffed sites to aid the distribution of packets through their network. This should assist eBayers as few items sold online are small enough to be shipped as letters.
It’s also worth another reminder that ParcelForce services should be unaffected by strike action and both Express 24 and Express 48 services can be purchased on eBay with PayPal postage.
32 Responses on "Alternatives to Royal Mail – Royal Mail"
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Special Delivery in London has been stuffed for a while. My postmaster has just got back from 2 weeks away, which was a week in Egypt framed by a few days in London. His currency didn’t turn up before he left on the Friday, so he asked his assistant to send it next day SD on the Saturday to his sister’s house in London, which she did. He was flying to Egypt on the Wednesday lunchtime, the SD package was delivered on Thursday afternoon and didn’t show up on online tracking at all until the Friday. I sent one to west London on Monday that hasn’t got there yet either.
We have decided not to post on weds, thurs, fri and then post them all on monday as the last few strikes its been the ones just posted that get delayed and then the new items are posted ok after the strike!
Stu
“We have decided not to post on weds, thurs, fri and then post them all on monday as the last few strikes its been the ones just posted that get delayed and then the new items are posted ok after the strike!”
We are doing the same for our Free Delivery orders. We’re using couriers (through Interparcel) for our Next Day orders.
We’re doing exactly the same and free delivery orders will be posted Saturday or Monday with all express orders sent by courier.
This is all very well but I have found that our sales over the past few days have collapsed as customers lose confidence in the delivery network.
This is putting my business at risk during the most crucial time of year. I know there must be many other companies in the same boat. We have no alternative carriers as this would increase our delivery costs by 300%
I think that it is about time that the government stepped in. Are they not the major shareholder in Royal Mail?
100% agree. The government seems to be totally out of touch with the reality of the impact that a prolonged strike will have on many. The seem to have relinquished all sense of responsibility.
The CWU are big contributors to Labour Party funds – Gordon’s lack of balls on this issue is no accident.
300% is a BIG increase “but” you only have to sustain that level of increase for a few days…a lot of money for sure but the alternative isn’t worth thinking about.
We will be sending most items tracked and crossing our fingers, each tracked item costs around £2.92 ish so a BIG increase for us but like I say, only for a few days.
Bigpoppa
Is that RM Tracked? If RM are on strike how will that help?
RM Special Delivery and RM Tracked will be expedited by RM management during the strikes. The service guarantee will be suspended, but the intention is that those two premium services will still get through the system
(That’s RM Tracked, not RM Signed For aka Recorded Delivery)
I use RM Tracked. The problem is the postie will not be picking up on Thur/Fri, so we will have to take to the depot or management will be collecting. Best to call your account manager each morning, and be prepared to take it to the depot yourself.
We’re very lucky in that our main depot is about 2 minutes drive away, we normally end up dropping a load off in the evening anyway…open up until 19:30 which helps.
I’d like to see striking in public services made illegal.
Been said here before but in the USA USPS are not allowed to strike. Why couldn’t it be the same here?
Because we have turned into a bunch of euro softies, nobody has the balls to speak out anymore.
Banning strikes would probably fall foul of some human right act dreamed up by the plonkers in Brussells.
If any of our staff went on strike I would sack’m on the bloody spot,pay the fine to the tribunal and move on..some folk just take chuffing liberties.
Plenty of people in the UK on the dole who would jump at the chance of £400 a week.
*back to the naughty corner*
Just a question. Would you ever be prepared to volunteer a couple of your hours at a RM sorting centre or whatever to help process packages?
I ask because it dawned on me this morning – as whirly has said before – that sorting and delivering mail is not rocket science. So why couldn’t the public or more likely small businesses help? Or wouldn’t that work?
I’m sure everyone here will have the answer if there is one.
Well, I would be happy to drive over to the Sorting Office in town, pick up the mail for my estate (about 300 houses) and deliver it. Is that any use to you?
I cant see that being allowed.
RM would not be insured and in the PC world we live in would probably get sued for a paper cut.
Personally I think if they go on strike they should be sacked on the spot.
“Personally I think if they go on strike they should be sacked on the spot” haven’t you said that before?
And how exactly would that help (if it was even legal)?
I know this won’t go down well , but spare a thought for your average postman.
The none millitant ones i have been speaking to feel they have no choice but to strike, several have said to me they feel bullied by both the union and the mail bosses.
I post on average of 200 packets a week and have very few problems,9 times out of 10 a buyer has been to lazy to ask for a re-delivery or collect the package.
I value the postal service it is important to me, yes the timing is bloody awful and i hope it is a sorted quickly but as ever there are two sides to every story.
As a foot note: i really feel for the Post Office staff this week that have to put up with all the fall out from this, poor sods get the blame for everything.
Totally agree with you. I live out in the sticks and I’ve not managed to find a single postie who’s in favour of striking.
Mostly it’s a “I’d rather not comment” or an “I’m keeping out of it” apart from the one enlightened chap who said “There will be a strike and then they’ll sit round the table and sort it out so why don’t they just sit round the table and sort it out?”
I have no sympathy. If 60% of postman did not vote for a strike why did they not bother voting at all.
This strike is being driven by the 40% who did vote.
No need to volunteer, RM are taking on 30,000 additional temporary workers very soon, could see a few applications from broke Ebay sellers !
The reason I asked was I was just interested and I also thought about the ‘what if I picked up mail for my postcode (12 houses) and delivered it. Was just interested in others thoughts.
But as you say RM have 30,000 temp staff coming in. As someone has just said on Sky. Looks like a good old confrontation from the 80’s and the only party who gets a bloody nose in situations like this is the union. We’ll have to see…
Story of the 30K is here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/royal-mail-will-hire-30000-extra-workers-to-beat-strike-1804868.html
“ParcelForce services should be unaffected by strike action”
Oh!, still crap then?
From my experience here are reliable alternitives to use. Some people have mentioned some already:
1. Interlink Express. Account customers only. Good for UK and Zone 1 Europe. Takes 1-2 day to set up. Pricing will be high initially, but can be negotiatiated over time.
2. Fastway Couriers. You have to buy pre-paid vouchers (min of 3 books of red / 60 tickets at about £6 per ticket). Cheaper local delivery available (black tickets). Reliable and efficient franchise operation. Can be set-up and operated in 1 day. Not full UK coverage for pick-up, but delivery is full for mainland UK. More expensive to delivery to highlands/islands/ London.
3. Parcel2go and Interparcel.com. Good value, pay as you go service. Sometimes dont turn up (not guaranteed that day). Customer services can be long winded. Good overall service via DHL or UPS mainly. Reasonable price for UK and Europe.
4. TNT. pricy account based, but reliable service for UK, Europe.
I’m sure everyone knows that there are alternatives for stuff over 2kg, it’s the light stuff – CDs, letters etc – which becomes a problem.
Royal Mail today say that whilst Special Delivery and Tracked will be prioritised, they aren’t guaranteeing a next day service for items posted on strike days, so beware if you though these methods would be unaffected.
It’s worth getting their daily service email updates;
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump1;jsessionid=PCJPVIM4MYTFQFB2IGFUNZQUHRAYUQ2K?catId=400144&mediaId=103100757
and using the info to email your customers on every despatch to reduce the chances of complaint. I’ve had a few feedbacks left with messages like ‘good service, still got through despite the strikes’ where they may not have even known there was action taking place without it. Like most on here though, I think I’m going to leave posting until the Monday if it does happen.
Are there really that many people on here that can leave the posting till Monday, We’re currently posting about 250/300 items a day. If I waited till Monday I would need a convoy of RM trucks
We’re the same as you but we’re not posting anything from Wednesday till Friday. We will be getting a collection on Saturday though.
There’s absolutely no point posting into the strike. Your customers will get their packages sent on Saturday well before the ones posted from Wed – Fri for the reasons outlined here before.
If you do decide to post in the strike all I’d say if ‘good luck’.
Hi can anyone advise me if i would qualify for tracked service during busy times we post 30 items a day though when quiet it can be less than 10.
From what i could see it looked like parcels would be £2.56 but sounds to cheap (well for a higher service than recorded delivery)
Advice please
Thanks sooooooooo much