Tag: Royal Mail

Another million pound fine for UK Royal Mail

Posted by | Feb 17, 2006 | |

Royal Mail has been hit with another multi million pound fine by the industry’s regulator after being accused of securing “unfair commercial advantage”, it was announced today. Postcomm proposed a fine of GBP2.16 million because the company had failed to take adequate steps to make sure it did not gain an unfair commercial advantage in the newly-liberalised mail market. The fine follows a penalty of GBP11.7 million against Royal Mail announced earlier this month because of the amount of lost or damaged post. The Royal Mail hit back angrily at the latest fine, denouncing the decision as “shoddy.”

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UK Post Office: Life in the old dog yet

Posted by | Feb 16, 2006 | |

The Post Office has been forced to broaden its horizons in recent years. Having branched out of its traditional sector, it now puts as much energy into competing against the likes of Barclays and BT as it does into sorting and delivering mail. Following its expansion into travel and financial services, the Post Office is looking to become a major player in the telecoms sector, launching its own directory enquiries service earlier this month to complement its fixed-line offering Homephone. Post Office head of marketing Simon Carter said last week that further product launches, which could include mobile phone, broadband or voice over internet protocol services, could follow. The Post Office has the largest retail network in Europe with 14,500 branches and 28 million customers a week. But the business is still losing more than GBP100m a year, exacerbated by the fact that pensions and child benefits are now paid directly into bank accounts. In the past, the transactions accounted for 40% of Post Office revenue. Although last week Post Office parent company Royal Mail was handed a record GBP11.7m fine for 14.6 million items that were lost or stolen last year, it is estimated that now just 25% of the Post Office’s business is handling mail. The rest is made up of travel products, government services, financial services and telecoms.

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Royal Mail Home Shopping Tracking Study – Autumn 05

Posted by | Feb 15, 2006 | |

Table of Contents

1. Background 2
2. Summary 3
3. Conclusions 10
4. Research objectives 11
5. Research method 12
5.1. Omnibus phase 12
5.2. In-depth telephone interviewing phase 14
5.3. Interviewing targets and weighting 15
6. Omnibus research findings 17
6.1. The size of the home shopping market 17
6.2. The demographic profile of the home shopping market 20
6.2.1. Gender 20
6.2.2. Age 21
6.2.3. Working status 23
6.2.4. Region 24
7. Main telephone study findings 25
7.1. Products purchased 25
7.2. Satisfaction with home shopping 28
7.3. Online shopping 30
7.3.1. Length of time shopping online 30
7.3.2. Most likely time to shop online 31
7.3.3. What prompted last online purchase 33
7.3.4. Products purchased online 35
7.3.5. Number of different websites purchased from in the last year 37
7.3.6. Websites purchased from 38
7.3.7. Auction websites 44
7.4. Digital TV shopping 45
7.5. Catalogue shopping by phone/post 46
7.5.1. Length of time shopping from catalogues 46
7.5.2. Most likely time to shop 48
7.5.3. What prompted last catalogue purchase 49
7.5.4. Products purchased from catalogues 50
7.5.5. Number of different catalogues purchased from in past year 51
7.5.6. Share of customers by catalogue type 52
7.6. Shopping via direct selling 53
7.7. Frequency of key product purchasing and spend via the Internet and catalogues 54
7.8. Home shopping spend 56
7.9. Cross channel shopping 63
7.10. Cross channel shopping and browsing 67
7.11. Motivations to home shop 71
7.12. Reasons for not home shopping 74
7.13. Likely change in shopping methods 77
7.14. Delivery 79
7.14.1. Satisfaction with delivery companies 79
7.14.2. Delivery addresses 80
7.14.3. Importance of delivery service options 81
7.14.4. Amount prepared to pay for special delivery options 83
7.14.5. Returning unwanted goods 84
7.14.6. Companies used for returns 85

P:LibraryB2CRoyal Mail_Home Shopping Tracker Report 2005.doc

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UK post workers meet over offer to end strike

Posted by | Feb 14, 2006 | |

Striking postal workers in Northern Ireland were meeting today to decide on an offer from Royal Mail and whether to call off their two-week wildcat action.
Late last night, management pledged to use independent conciliators to improve future relationships between them and the union at all levels. But staff involved in the strike in Belfast must agree to return to work immediately and pledge not to hold any further industrial action for 12 months. The offer followed day-long talks in London between Royal Mail bosses and national representatives of the Communication Workers’ Union aimed at halting a strike which has thrown postal delivery services into chaos.

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UK Royal Mail braced for second 'hit' from regulator

Posted by | Feb 12, 2006 | |

Royal Mail faces another multi-million-pound fine this week from industry regulator Postcomm over using its dominance in the postal market to thwart competition. The action comes a week after the state-owned postal operator was fined pounds 11.7m for losing millions of items of mail. Its timing is also sensitive because the market was only opened to full competition at the beginning of last month. Postcomm has been investigating the terms on which Royal Mail gives access to its network of postmen to rival companies, enabling them to process bulk business post such as bills and mailshots. It is thought Postcomm has found that Royal Mail has gained an unfair advantage because there has not been adequate separation of its wholesale division, which deals with and offers terms to rival operators, and its retail arm, which offers products and prices direct to customers such as banks.

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