Mail volumes typically rise from about 80m items a day to 140m during the Christmas period, but much of the extra volume has gone second-class. Total volume has also stuck at about 3bn for the last couple of years.
Read MoreRoyal Mail could lose its near-monopoly on the delivery and collection of letters in the UK before the end of the decade following a EU deal struck in Luxembourg last night.
The company, already facing limited competition in the recently liberalised British postal market, will be forced to accept a wave of new rivals in 2003 and 2006 respectively after ministers from all 15 EU member states agreed to a phased-in abolition of national postal monopolies with a view to creating a harmonised EU single market in the sector.
You can’t please all the people all the time. As expected, Consignia’s minority stake of £2 million in Bristol-based mailing house Mail Marketing International has caused mixed reactions.
The investment, claims Royal Mail, is part of an ongoing strategy to protect mail from cheaper, faster options, like email. By stumping up the cash, the delivery giant says it wants to ensure direct mail has a sustainable future. “The problem,” says Geoff Lambert, finance and commercial director at Royal Mail, “is how to make the industry relevant in a digital age. We’re putting our money where our mouth is. We’re willing to change and to share the risk.”
By risk, Lambert means taking time and cost out of the supply chain. Investment in MMI, he predicts, enables both companies to develop new ways of working, with the solutions they find to be shared among the industry.
THE Royal Mail is to launch a £10 million campaign to encourage people to use first-class post this Christmas. Royal Mail is facing competition for the first time and is looking at new strategies to boost its revenue, says the journal Marketing. It is also considering the introduction of an inter-city mail delivery service for 15p, evening deliveries and allowing customers to collect their post from a designated outlet.
Read MoreNew business model for Royal Mail – Gillian Wilmot, Managing Director, Business and Consumer markets, Royal Mail (UK)
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