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29 October 2009
Royal Mail Strike: Practical Advise For e-Retailers
With the planned industrial action at Royal Mail, IMRG has created some practical advice for IMRG members.
Clearly industrial action will impact all postal users and whether you are sending letters, documents, packets or parcels, you are likely to be affected. There will be limited options because Royal Mail generally provides the ‘final mile’ delivery for most letters and packets, regardless of how many other postal companies now operate in the UK.
Letters, Statements, Documents
- Contact your customers NOW (even by post) and make sure you have an email address and their permission to use it.
- Advise these customers that you will suspend physical mail and communicate with them online, at least until the industrial action is over. In doing this you will be at least saving the cost of production and postage.
- If you have access to a branch or retail network, set up the facility for customers to collect urgent documents from their nearest one by providing a ‘postcode defined’ alternative delivery address.
- There are a number of companies who can deliver pouches of mail to business addresses without the need to use the Royal Mail network – For example DX and TNT to name only two
- Consider creating your own mail storage capacity. If you do have to prepare physical documents and the mail is to be held, you may consider it better to store it yourself. You can do this under your control, sequenced and ready for dispatch when the network comes back on line. There will be less chance of loss or damage and you will be able to tell your customer where their mail is.
OR
- Speak to an alternative (downstream access) postal operator. They cannot provide a complete contingency as they also rely on Royal Mail for the final delivery but in the short term they will:
- Collect your mail – clearing out your production space
- Deliver it to Royal Mail at the point nearest delivery. This should mean that when that area returns to work, your mail will have bypassed many of the pipeline backlogs and will have a better chance of being delivered with less delay.
- For international mail, consider using an international consolidator who will collect your mail and route it out of the country without touching Royal Mail
Alternatively:
- Use a hybrid Electronic / Physical distribution service. These services allow you to download your print file and have each document sent electronically, fully tracked to a printer near to the point of delivery where the electronic document is turned into a physical document and posted locally at local rates.
Packets (Up to 2 – 3 kilos)
It’s obviously impossible to send packets electronically so once there is a backlog of packets in the Royal Mail network it takes a time to clear.
But there are still things you can consider:
- Ask customers for a business address you can deliver to for them. Not all employers will allow this for security reasons and because they don’t want their internal mail system blocked up with private packets. However some companies will deliver packets to businesses at a reasonable cost that they won’t deliver to homes. DX for one.
- There are also some companies who will deliver packets to homes at a competitive price. Hermes is one and we understand that Home Delivery Network is about to launch a fully tracked home packets service.
- Offer your customers an alternative (non home) delivery location.
- Collect+ has recently launched in partnership with Pay Point to allow parcels to be delivered to and collected from petrol stations and convenience stores.
- Useyourlocal.com offers a similar option with Public Houses.
- Use a high street branch or retail network.
These options may add some cost to the operation but it will enable you to keep your customers happy.
Parcels
Fortunately there are many parcel companies who can deliver without any reliance on Royal Mail so you should be able to find a competitive contingency. However if you only expect to use them while the strike is on, it may be difficult to negotiate their best rates.
Please try to keep your customers informed and if you do have to delay or suspend dispatches, advise them before they order something and give them the option to:
- Defer dispatch
- Upgrade to a non Royal Mail service – even if it costs a little more
We urge retailers to be extremely cautious if they are approached by postal brokers offering to completely avoid the impact of the strike simply by switching suppliers.
If you need to discuss the strike or any other postal matters please contact Andrew Starkey on 07952 813622 or e mail
andrew.starkey@imrg.org