We’ve recently seen the price of 1st and 2nd class stamps increase to 95p and 68p respectively. Despite these increases, we understand there is a desire to reduce the postal delivery of 1st and 2nd class mail to just 5 days a week, a reduction in postal services for business and the general public.
The full Ofcom report from 2020 can be found here.
This report states: “Reducing the letters service to five days a week (Monday to Friday), but leaving all other elements of the service unchanged, would still meet the needs of 97% of residential and SME users.”
It also highlights: “The evidence suggests reducing the frequency of letter deliveries requirement to five days a week would reflect users’ reasonable needs. It would also potentially allow Royal Mail to make net cost savings of around £125-225m per year in 2022/23 terms, assuming Royal Mail is able to realise these savings by modifying its operational delivery model.”
The potential reduction to five days a week will clearly impact some businesses more than others. For example, gift card shops experience consumers purchasing cards on a Thursday or Friday to be delivered at the weekend (on the day of the celebration). The removal of a Saturday delivery could impact this example of spending behaviour and most likely encourage people to switch to digital communications.
Bira is not convinced that a potential premium service for Saturday delivery would offset problems caused by a midweek only delivery schedule.
Would changing to Monday- Friday only postal (not parcels) deliveries have an impact on you and your business? Let us know below.