Royal Mail & Parcelforce Merge

This may be news to some of those who are reading this. Royal Mail Group Limited have always operated their workloads under two businesses, Royal Mail & Parcelforce. Two sets of systems. One typically used for large heavier items and the other handling letters and smaller parcels. While efficient at first, over the years it has proved to be a bit of an issue with regards to strikes, delays and not to mention that with global warming in mind there’s double the carbon footprint.

The strikes have been a big part of Royal Mail’s story over the last year, themselves and the CWU (Communication Workers Union) have had quiet discussions that developing a single parcel network would be a strategic initiative and hopefully ignite improvement to the company as a whole. Now that this negotiation is in the air, you’ll likely be thinking, so what will be the changes made for the courier companies and how will it affect us? – Here we have provided a bit of a rundown for the talking points between CWU and Royal Mail:

• Investing all of the synergically relevant operations between Royal Mail and Parcelforce, consolidating the number of depots while considering locations, seeking to improve on the time drivers spend on the roads (drop density) as well as reducing stem mileage/inter-drop distance for delivering parcels to different locations.
• Integrating Parcelforce with Royal Mail within a time frame that can keep the business in balance. Providing a sufficient quality for existent members of staff.
• Producing a marginal selection of parcel services so this will result in a more efficient means of tracking and a less competitive approach.
• Royal Mail will have the capability to function 24/7, this including scan updates on parcels in transit while deliveries take place during the daytime.
• There will be a new incentive put in place for price per parcel based off of if the performance by the member of staff is above the recognised standard. This meaning that there will be a bigger opportunity for a more merited pay and endorse high performances carried out within the business.
• Further decisions to considering which capacity vehicles are provided in which area. More specifically, ensuring Parcelforce’s heavy and bulky/large parcels are spread evenly across various depots.

With the unification of cost, coverage and service while both businesses co-operate in developing reward methods, Royal Mail and CWU acknowledge that the outcome will be dependant on the review of this single network. Nothing is carved in stone just yet and there are a lot of preparations to be made, whatever result this will lead to, can we account for the issues that have followed the company over the last year? The catastrophic blows delivered during strike seasons to numerous businesses, big and small, nationwide.

If the two collaborate together, will there mean further opportunities for Seller Fulfilled Prime products as they can then handle larger items? Will there be further issues down the line if the merger fails? What will the transport changes mean for pick and pack warehouses and other eCommerce fulfilment services?

Plenty of questions remain. Just be certain that you have alternate couriers available for shipping your orders while we approach the summer sales season as there are likely to be some disruptions with couriers. To provide pre-emptive protection on your marketplace fulfilment, you should always take a proactive approach and prepare some backup plans for your choice of courier!

Even though there were strike during peak period in December 2022 MCF had it covered as we have a capability to change our courier service at the press of a button.  During this time we moved all Amazon Prime orders to the other two nominated services dictated by Amazon to DPD & Amazon Shipping.  This ensured customers received their goods the following day without fuss, and prevented customer dissatisfaction with receiving goods late during the strikes.

Keeping customers happy, should be at the heart of all we do.