I’m fascinated by courier companies. A few weeks ago I ordered some software from Amazon.com because it wasn’t available from .co.uk, and I’m impatient, so I used the fastest delivery option. Using the UPS tracking service, I was able to watch on the website as my package was transported from place to place, and wonder at the fact that it was out there making its inevitable way towards me via a series of hubs, sorting mechanisms, lorries and planes.
In reverse order, times are local to the package:
June 7, 2007 05:52:00 AM FELTHAM GB Out for delivery
June 6, 2007 08:13:00 PM EAST MIDLANDS AIRPOR GB Arrival Scan
June 6, 2007 08:24:00 AM PHILADELPHIA PA US Departure Scan
June 6, 2007 04:52:00 AM PHILADELPHIA PA US Arrival Scan
June 6, 2007 03:29:00 AM LOUISVILLE KY US Departure Scan
June 5, 2007 11:37:00 PM LOUISVILLE KY US Arrival Scan
June 5, 2007 10:20:00 PM LEXINGTON KY US Departure Scan
June 5, 2007 09:22:00 PM LEXINGTON KY US Shipment picked up from seller’s facility
June 5, 2007 06:38:01 PM US Carrier notified to pick up package
Meanwhile, the Communication Workers Union, according to a leaflet I picked up when I went to collect a Special Delivery from a Royal Mail depot, want to “end unfair competition”. Royal Mail’s idea of innovation is to invent big stamps that you have to put on big letters so that I have to measure my letters before I send them. Competition in the mail industry will be a good thing for customers and mail workers who CWU claim to represent. Mail workers would undoubtedly benefit from having more employers to choose from.
Update: Here’s the third paragraph from CWU’s leaflet “A Message to the Public”:
Starved of investment for decades Royal Mail now faces unfair competition from private operators who, for a discounted price, collect and sort profitable bulk business mail before passing it on to Royal Mail to deliver over the ‘final mile’. The result is Royal Mail has lost millions in revnue while profits of private competitors has [sic] soared.
Where to begin? “Starved of investment”, as is made clear further down (“government investment to introduce automation”) means, “we want to spend your money, without giving you a choice, whether you post letters or not, on our letter delivery business. This is because we think it will be better for you, and obviously we know how to spend your money better than you do.”
Somehow, private businesses are able to make soaring profits while charging less than Royal Mail did, and this is supposed to be a bad thing? Royal Mail still has a monopoly over the “final mile”, and yet it is still able to lose millions in revenue. This just proves that having a monopoly is not a way to run a successful business. Open the whole thing up, and successful companies will be able to make soaring profits (and pay their staff more) while providing a better service for less money, while unsuccessful ones will rightly go out of business instead of being kept alive with other people’s money.
I agree that the change to charging by parcel size as well as weight doesn’t seem to make sense – although I’m sure it probably did to whichever overpaid consultant(s) who were brought in by the Royal Mail.
I suspect the reason why the commercial companies are able to make money is because, unlike the Royal Mail, they are not bound to provide a universal service. Plus the fact that they’re not actually delivering the mail, the Royal Mail is (wonder how much the Royal Mail gets paid by these other companies for that – bet the government forces them to accept less than they take from post sent entirely through the RM), which is probably why they’re able to charge less, as they’re not paying anyone to deliver it
So I’d say it is unfair competition on the Royal Mail as they’re not competing on a like for like basis. Let’s see what happens when the private companies have to pay people to go deliver the mail over the final mile. My guess is that their prices would soon have to go up and profits down.
You have a point there — it’s highly likely that the government is meddling in all kinds of aspects of this, and any meddling is unfair.
When I argue in favour of opening up the postal market, I mean privatising *and* deregulating it. In fact it isn’t really privatisation without deregulation.