Royal Mail Strike And Alternatives

The news is that the “national” delivery service, The Royal Mail, may be fully privatised to help it become profitable with the 170,000 “posties” getting shares in the new company. Will that make the company more efficient and allow them to offer lower prices? Well the important element to focus on is that The Post Office, which has 12,000 branches around the country, will remain in government hands. Whether this is a good thing or not is open to debate.

There have been numerous stories about Post Office closures by stealth, not least from the Northern Echo, who have noted that many rural Post Offices in rural communities have closed over the past twelve years. The issue is that 51% of businesses surveyed by eBay are reliant on the Post Office.

And the problem is worse for the growing number of people striking out on their own and setting up shop online. The average number of parcels sent by online companies according to the eBay report is now 1,134 a month. Obviously a good number have their parcels collected by Royal Mail, whilst others with lower volumes are irregular dispatches are reliant on their local post office. With more closures likely with budgetary cut backs then these online companies could be left in the lurch – if were not for companies such as Parcel Monkey.

Each strike, and it appears the Unions in general may be striking in the near future, causes more and more people and companies to take their business online – and to companies such as ourselves. The last major Royal Mail strikes saw 26% of those companies that were forced to seek alternatives stayed elsewhere. And seeing as we’re constantly making our courier service more efficient and cost-effective, we envisage even more people staying away from the old methods of package delivery.