Tag: Royal Mail

UK postage cost rise to be offset by credit scheme

Posted by | Sep 8, 2005 | |

Large business postal users will be reimbursed for some of the extra costs incurred when changes to mail pricing come into force in September 2006.
Under the new pricing scheme smaller but heavier items will become cheaper while larger bulkier letters and packages will become more expensive to send. The changes are expected to affect prices on around 30 per cent of business mail. But business users spending GBP100,000 or more a year and whose postal charges rise by at least 50 per cent under the new pricing structure will be reimbursed 40 per cent of their additional postal charges by Royal Mail in the first year. They will also recoup 20 per cent of the costs in the second year, with reimbursement taking the form of postal credits. However, Nicola Rowe, director of circulation at the Periodical Publishers Association described the 50 per cent threshold as “unrealistically high”. She said: “We are disappointed that Postcomm has chosen to wash its hands of the mitigation scheme and to leave the detail to Royal Mail.

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Royal Mail set to ‘lose a third’ of its market when letter monopoly ends

Posted by | Sep 4, 2005 | |

The Royal Mail is to face a three-way battle for customers and will lose up to a third of its revenues, one of its main rivals is predicting. Peter Bakker, the chief executive of Dutch post and logistics group TNT, says he expects at least two serious rivals to emerge to Royal Mail when its monopoly on letter delivery ends next year. Each, says Mr Bakker, will take 10 to 15 per cent of Royal Mail’s business. He was speaking as another of the expected challengers to Royal Mail, Deutsche Post, was revealed as the suitor of Exel Logistics, the UK delivery group. Both Deutsche Post and TNT are already making inroads into the UK postal market, though mostly in what is known as the ‘access’ area. This is where post is collected from business clients, scanned and sent to regional centres, where it is then passed to the Royal Mail for sorting and delivery.
Mr Bakker said his group soon hopes to be in the ‘consolidation’ area, where TNT will sort mail but Royal Mail staff still deliver. It is installing high-tech sorting equipment in its 69 regional hubs in the next few months.

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What future for Royal Mail as Deutsche Post wades into UK with mooted bid for Exel?

Posted by | Sep 2, 2005 | |

Allan Leighton, chairman of Royal Mail, can only look on and weep. While overseas rivals respond to the challenge of deregulation by expanding into new businesses and new territories, he’s condemned to make the best of what he’s got. Trapped within the Treasury controlled boundaries of the public finances, all he can do to meet the challenge of postal competition is slash costs to match the decline in revenues. The already privatised Deutsche Post, by contrast, is moving to reduce its dependence on the German domestic market, where its monopoly is due to end in 2007, by expanding overseas.

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Home Shopping Tracking Study – Winter 2004

Posted by | Sep 1, 2005 | |

Prepared by Continental Research for Royal Mail
Table of Contents 1.Background
2. Management summary
2.1. Home shopper profile
2.2. Channel size – volume of people
2.3. Online shopping channel
2.4. Catalogue shopping
2.5. Channel satisfaction
2.6. Channel motivations/ barriers
2.7. Home shopping – the future
2.8. Delivery
3. Conclusions
3.1. Opportunities
4. Research objectives
5. Research method
5.1. Omnibus phase
5.2. In-depth telephone interviewing phase
5.2.1. Interviewing targets and weighting
6. Omnibus research findings
6.1. The size of the home shopping market
6.2. The demographic profile of the home shopping market
6.3. Gender
6.4. Age
6.5. Social grade
6.6. Working status
6.7. Region
7. Main telephone study findings
7.1. Products purchasing
7.2. Satisfaction with home shopping
7.3. Online shopping
7.3.1. Length of time shopping online
7.3.2. Most likely time to shop online
7.3.3. What prompted last online purchase
7.3.4. Internet spend
7.3.5. Products purchased online
7.3.6. Frequency of key product purchasing and spend via the Internet
7.3.7. Number of different websites purchased from in the last year
7.3.8. Websites purchased from
7.3.9. Auction websites
7.3.10. Satisfaction with online shopping
7.4. Digital TV shopping
7.5. Catalogue shopping
7.5.1. Length of time shopping from catalogues
7.5.2. Most likely time to shop via telephone/ post
7.5.3. What prompted last catalogue purchase
7.5.4. Spend on catalogue purchases
7.5.5. Products purchased from catalogues
7.5.6. Number of different catalogues purchased from in past year
.5.7. Frequency of key products purchased and spend
7.5.8. Big book catalogue – share of customers
7.5.9. Satisfaction with catalogue shopping
7.6. Shopping via direct selling
7.7. Cross-channel shopping
7.8. Motivations to home shop
7.8.1. Reasons for not home shopping
7.9. Delivery
7.9.1. Satisfaction with delivery companies
7.9.2. Delivery addresses
7.9.3. Importance of delivery service options
7.9.4. Amount prepared to pay for special delivery options
7.9.5. Returning unwanted goods

Home Shopping Tracker Market Research 2004

Introduction

Royal Mail recognise that it is important for both itself and its customers to understand how the home shopping market is developing, the main issues facing consumers and how they should respond. By understanding the market better Royal Mail will continue to play a central role in the success of the industry; be that as an integral part of the marketing mix, warehousing and fulfilment, distribution and delivery or order processing and billing.

Royal Mail is committed to supporting the industry in realising this growth potential by cultivating profitable, customer-focused strategies. It aims to do this through the development of innovative end-to-end solutions for a range of home shopping companies; sharing findings of independent research – such as this Home Shopping Tracking Study – demonstrates its commitment to its customers.

Background

Continental Research was commissioned by Royal Mail in January 2000 to undertake a regular study which would size the market, track its growth and provide a fuller understanding of the views of both home shoppers and non home shoppers. The first wave of research was conducted in September 2000. This report details the findings of the sixth wave of research conducted in September 2004. The results of the study provide an insight into consumer behaviour and attitudes to home shopping. It is hoped that the research information can be used to encourage new businesses to enter the home shopping market and to encourage growth amongst the existing base of companies involved with offering its customers home shopping.

Management Summary – Key Findings

To avoid any differences that may be caused by seasonal effects the key comparisons made in both the executive summary and the main body of this report are between the third wave

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