Royal Mail’s proposed price increases are nothing short of scandalous.
At a time when households and businesses across Britain are struggling with the cost of living and the rising cost of doing business, some Royal Mail customers are facing increases up to 35%.
This isn’t simply another annual price adjustment. For many businesses, it represents a fundamental increase in the cost of communicating with their customers, particularly the elderly who often have a distrust of the digital world.
And we need to ask why?
As a mailing company, we strongly believe in the future of physical mail. Mail remains an incredibly effective way of reaching people. It is tangible, trusted and often more engaging than digital communication. For some organisations, it is also essential, with financial services, utilities, healthcare, government and other regulated organisations having legal, regulatory or contractual reasons for communicating with customers physically. So it’s important that we should be protecting the future of mail — not progressively pricing it out of existence.
The people delivering the mail aren’t the problem
It is important to make one thing absolutely clear: The frontline Royal Mail workforce deserves enormous credit. Postal workers continue to work incredibly hard in difficult circumstances, delivering millions of items across the country every day. In our experience, the people who collect and deliver the mail are committed, hardworking and professional.
So if customers are being asked to pay up to 35% more, the obvious question is:
Where is the problem within the business?
If Royal Mail’s revenues increase dramatically as a result of these price rises, how much of that additional income is actually reaching the people doing the job?
How much is being invested in improving the network, technology, vehicles and operational performance?
How much is being absorbed by management, administration and other overheads?
Ultimately, where is the value going?
These are reasonable questions to ask when customers have so little choice but to use the Royal Mail network.
A monopoly customers cannot easily avoid.
Royal Mail occupies a unique position in the UK postal market.
Businesses can choose how they generate and process mail, but when fully addressed letters need to reach virtually every UK household and business, there are very limited alternatives for the final mile delivery.
At the same time, Ofcom has acknowledged that Royal Mail’s recent service performance has been unacceptable and has taken regulatory action when delivery targets have not been achieved.
So customers are entitled to ask why they should pay substantially more for a service that has not consistently delivered the performance expected of it. Infact, in some cases far from it.
Where is the industry voice?
There is another uncomfortable question: Where are the organisations representing the businesses that depend upon the postal network?
Why isn’t there a much stronger collective response to increases of this magnitude?
Where is Ofcom when customers are facing increases that could fundamentally change the economics of using mail?
This isn’t about opposing Royal Mail. It is about asking whether the current model is working.
Is it time to rethink the postal service?
If Royal Mail is increasingly moving towards the more profitable parcels market while traditional mail volumes continue to decline, perhaps we need to reconsider what it is we expect from our national postal infrastructure.
The postal service exists for a reason.
If we allow a cycle to develop where prices rise dramatically, businesses use less mail, volumes fall further and prices then have to rise again, we risk creating the very decline that everyone says they want to avoid.
We should be making mail more attractive, more efficient and more affordable – not accelerating its decline.
Royal Mail needs to be commercially sustainable, but what about it’s customers?
And if we genuinely want a postal service that works for Britain, then Government, Ofcom, Royal Mail and the industries that depend upon it need to have a much more open conversation about price, performance, competition, accountability and the future purpose of the postal service.
Because the people making and delivering the mail deserve better, as do the people paying for it.
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