Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Following on from Brendyboy's post yesterday, I can confirm that my local mail centre cleared last night and today's letter box collection is anticipated to be very light. The local parcels clearance would appear to be down to the super hubs and parcel sorting machines taking on a large amount, however this success has also brought on a bit of a downside with regards to parcels automation and machinery. At the start of Thompson's tenure, a deal was signed with the French company that supplied our letter sorting and sequencing machines to supply twenty medium to large size parcel machines in mail centres to supplement the existing machines. Only eight machines were installed and it is now believed that the remaining machines will not be necessary going forward so presumably the business is now thinking that full capacity has been reached in the UK parcels market?
Ispy, a nicely constructed post. Not bad for a "minimum wage, brain damaged bum"....lol.
I believe that the original poster, AngerSharkz, was buying in January 2021 when the SP was between 518p and 462p so your estimate of 450p was quite generous but I doubt that AS purchased 10,000 shares at 450p so your estimate of 1,000 shares may well be more accurate so 40p dividend isn't going to cover that loss. Perhaps TMS received an inheritance from AS when he departed which would mean that those shares were "free"?.....lol
To add to my earlier post and regarding my personal post over the last two weeks, RM have delivered quite a few letters and one jiffy bag, Amazon have delivered several parcels but by far the bulk has been delivered by Evri. The poor guy is so busy that he has enlisted the help of his seventeen year old son (now on half term) in order to get through the deliveries. Obviously this is a local snapshot.
Sid, Darkesh, it looks as though the excess Amazon deliveries may be area dependent? Our area is awash with the grey electric vans and RM don't appear to be delivering anything from Amazon but that might be because we have a large Amazon depot about 1½ miles away? I guess the more Rural areas might be impacted more?
Ispy, with regards to casuals, I believe that this is the lowest number that RM have ever taken on so senior management must have been anticipating lower volumes? Unfortunately, low volumes may also equate to potential low volumes of return parcels post Christmas which also isn't good. I only hope that Seidenberg has a plan?
Ispy, I went for Christmas dinner and a few drinks with some of my ex work colleagues on Sunday and they told me that parcels were so light that the casuals were being sent home early however letter box collection mail through the machines were around 8% up on 2019 numbers. I'm not sure if this is just a local issue as Brendyboy was saying that his office was the busiest that it had ever been at the beginning of December?
PP, our regular postie is on Facebook almost every day with advice. He sorts out all sorts of delivery issues and has been doing this for years now. Our regular local Evri delivery driver has also done our area for several years and really upped his game to compete with the postie. Both provide an excellent service and both have received accolades and awards from the local community.
"Why the big jump today?"
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the increase was on the back of Seidenberg sacking McPherson as COO? He was fired/rejected from JLR only eighteen months ago and taken on by Thompson but has obviously been found to be lacking. The UK operation really needs a COO that has a proven track record in the parcel courier business so perhaps Seidenberg has a more suitable candidate?
Derek, thanks for the update. I knew that you would have a more precise description. From a mail centre perspective with an internal delivery office all I saw was regular DSA suddenly not having to go through the sorting machines and straight to the delivery office instead. Our late shift manager mentioned something about having to lose a certain amount of contracts.
Another negative news article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67658970.amp
Even more worrying are the alleged comments from Royal Mail.
"In a statement, Royal Mail said "extensive measures" were in place "to improve our deliveries and ensure they are consistent and reliable at our busiest time of year.
"Our postmen and women are making deliveries at least every other day and we can confirm the vast majority of letters are delivered on time."
Every other day? So an admission of failure then? Surely they mean "six days a week"? It would be interesting to know the source of that statement.
If my memory serves me correctly, before privatisation could commence, RM were ordered to "lose" around 30% of it's large business customer base in order to give the competition a chance, therefore allowing companies such as Whistl to bid for some of the RM existing contracts at a very competitive price. I believe that BT and Lloyds Bank were some of the earliest adopters and beneficiaries here but I could be wrong. No doubt JB or Derek will be able to fill in the gaps here?
The problem here is that if you are the only company delivering the final mile for letters then you still have a monopoly even if it is an "obligation".
Redceo, "surely a company is entitled to charge whatever it wishes. The customer is equally entitled to accept or not?"
In the normal world of business that would probably be correct but this is Royal Mail so there will be price caps and especially lowered tariffs for bulk customers, especially those who have walk sorted their perfectly prepared mail for injection straight to the delivery office and these prices will have been over seen by our wonderful regulator to ensure that RM aren't over charging.
Derek, "isn’t this what is already supposed to happen to machine sorted 2c and economy letters?"
It's called "Delivery to Specification (DtS)". RM no longer deliver 2C ahead of time as it used to, when capacity and capability allowed and now actively holds back 2C until it's due delivery date which requires extra time, space, planning, sequencing machinery and of course machine operators in mail centres. To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced that it saves any cash for the UK operation at all?
"Under the new delivery rules posties will still pass every door on their round every business day, but half their round will receive only parcels, express and priority mail.
That half will alternate every business day, meaning parcels, express and priority mail will be delivered daily, while ordinary letters and unaddressed mail will be delivered every second business day.
The changes are based on trials co-designed by Australia Post and the Communications Workers Union.
The new rules would include allowing the post to charge a commercial rate for priority mail, which accounts for about 8% of addressed letters, within limits to be set by a statement of expectations in 2024.
Graham said the announcement “recognises we need greater flexibility to acknowledge the true cost of mail delivery”
I would imagine that some parts of the UK would consider the above business model as an upgrade to current service levels?.....lol
Given Sunak's current level of parliamentary woes and an upcoming election sometime over the next twelve months, I can't see anything happening until at least 2025 thought?
Redceo, JB, this is the link to the Guardian article on Tuesday.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/06/australia-post-daily-letter-deliveries-ending-company-losses#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17019414584456&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2023%2Fdec%2F06%2Faustralia-post-daily-letter-deliveries-ending-company-losses
Not a glowing report from the residents of Newhaven on the south coast? It looks like the issue isn't the nearest mail centre (Gatwick) but the delivery office. Let's hope that the COM gets to grips with the situation soon.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-67615783.amp
A low volume of Christmas cards isn't good. Over the last decade, December letter box collection mail has accounted for around one third of that year's total letter box collection mail and at 75p (minimum) a pop that's an easy profit when processed in quantity.
JB, thank you for your comments. I too would like to see all items delivered to specification however I believe that it's a bit of a postcode lottery. The nine "small" mail centres do not have parcel machines and have been instructed to send their parcels to their nearest mail centre that does have a parcel machine. The issue is that the larger mail centre cannot always accommodate the surplus parcels that it has received and will send these back to the office of origin for sortation by hand but the smaller mail centres no longer have an early shift or the staff to do this so this causes failures especially with 1C/T24 items and T48 items become T24 items by default.
Of course, if you live in or close to London, Liverpool, Manchester, the south east or the midlands you probably wouldn't be affected and I do wonder if the business is trying to acclimatise the UK into accepting a lower quality of service by default?