Firm aiming to lick UK Royal Mail
A POST company is using Swin-don in the vanguard of its attack on Royal Mail.
UK Mail has opened its first letter sorting machine at the Hillmead Enterprise Park in Swindon.
And it has hinted that it might use the town as an experiment for setting up postboxes in large shops or shopping centres for the general public.
The centre will allow UK Mail to sort up to 20,000 items of post a day and will be the first of several others are planned for Leicester, Leeds, London and Glasgow.
At the moment it has to ask businesses to sort their own post before collection.
UK Mail is the same day delivery and logistics arm of Business Post.
Business Post’s chief executive Paul Carvell this week predicted that Royal Mail will retain about 80 per cent of the postal market after it is fully opened. Previously industry analysts believed that only 10 per cent would be taken away by incomers after the market is liberalised.
Since Business Post delivered its first letter in May last year it has dealt with more than 100 million items of post. Mr Carvell said: “Royal Mail has had three competitors since 2001 and it now retains a 98 per cent market share.
“However, as Business Post and others rise to the challenge of collecting, sorting and delivering mail, this percentage will fall. We are already providing an excellent service for our large corporate customers.
“We are moving into the small and medium-sized business market and soon we will be into the consumer market.
“Business Post is currently considering a wide range of options for how it will implement its service to consumers, but we have a pretty clear idea of what this will look like.”
There are likely to be trials across the country of placing Business Mail postboxes in shopping centres, supermarkets and other large shops for the general public to use.
So far, areas mentioned as pilot areas include Swindon, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow and parts of London. But the company will not confirm details about the logistics of the scheme such as whether it would have to issue stamps saying it was early days.
