The Anonymous Widower

The Facts Behind Royal Mail

We all know that the Post Office and Royal Mail are in trouble.

But what are the true facts behind the problems?  This analysis on the BBC web site contains some interesting facts.

For a start, it always used to be the case that mail volumes followed the economy.  But not any more and now, there is a large decline in volumes, due to technology, which has created a large gap in the traditional forecast.  We now know, that if the economy picks up again, there will be no bounce in mail volumes.

I’ve said before that nearly everything I get now in the post, is either junk mail or a few bills.  I probably get about five of the latter a month and about five pieces of junk that go straight in the bin every day.  Only on birthdays and at Christmas, do I get a substantial amount of mail.

As the service gets more unreliable, I suspect that mail volumes will decline even further.

Many of the companies I deal with on the Internet, used to send catalogues.  Many now do not.  I even had a local charity send me a nice card yesterday, saying that they were moving to e-mail and would I sign up. So even the 59% of mail which makes up business to home letters is seriously under threat.

Suppose that this declined by half, which I suspect will happen in the next couple of years, as businesses will see no point in large amounts of direct mail.  This would actually reduce total mail volumes by 30%. No business can suffer this sort of decline, without large amounts of industrial strife or insolvency.

Whichever way you look at it, the outlook for Royal Mail is grim.

You could also say that it’s grim for the taxpayer, as we will have to pick up the pension deficit.

October 23, 2009 - Posted by AnonW | Business | Royal Mail