In the UK and New Zealand and I assume in most other places where there is access to the internet the number of people using snail mail is dropping drastically. Christmas cards alone were 20% down in 2012 as against 2011 for New Zealand Post and overall mail is predicted to be down between 6 and 8% year on year over the next few years. The upshot is that NZ Post intend to cut deliveries from 6 days a week to 3 days a week with effect from 2014.
Living as I do for 6 months of the year in a very remote part of the UK ie the Isle of Lewis I am very aware of the reliance of remote areas on the postal service for many things other than letters. I am also aware of the fact that serving remote rural areas is probably very unprofitable for mail and parcel services. It is not helped by the fact that competition and the removal of the Royal Mail's monopoly (in the UK - there is competition in NZ too) has meant that the profitable urban post has been diminished further.
I can forsee a time, however, when daily deliveries in the UK may be a thing of the past and regional pricing may well become standard without government subsidies.
I fear there are testing times ahead.
Posts
I remember when the internet first became popular, there was a big furore regarding the extinction of snail mail. Remember the Postal Service was up in arms about the whole thing. Then some bright person came up with the idea that folks should pay for every email sent. It all settled down somewhat eventually, but we all knew the postal service was going to go the way of the dodo bird as they years go by. I still use and love snail mail. We still have postal delivery everyday. Some bills arrive electronically, and others in those dreaded picture window envelopes that there's no mistaking what they are.
ReplyDeleteI don't get any bills by post now Virginia. They are all on line and, in fact, I have actively to go to the relevant website in most cases to view them.
DeleteHere we have the option whether to sign up for electronic billing.
DeleteI'd actually assume that, as there seems to be no slowing down in the amount of internet shopping people do, that there will actually be an increase in the total number of items that need delivering. Of course not all those items will be suitable for delivery by the postal service, but I would have thought that rather than cutting the number of delivery days they would have tried to improve their operations to reduce costs and to attract more of this type of business. The more difficult the post office make it for small items to be delivered quickly the less people will use the service (we live in a world of instant gratification where most people won't thinks sooner rather than later, hence most online shopping offering next day delivery services) which will make it even less profitable which will in turn lead to an increase in costs which will make people use it less and round and round we go!
ReplyDeleteIn summary reducing the number of delivery days is likely to hurt their profitability not help it.
Luckily I have not heard of any such plans here - yet. They did cut down on the number of letterboxes and how often they're emptied a couple of years or so ago, though. We also get the mail much later in the day now. Between late deliveries and early emptying hours it's hardly possible any more to send anyone an answer by snailmail that will reach them the following day. Back in my early childhood there were two mail deliveries per day on weekdays and at least one on Saturdays.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether there is any city centre twice daily service in the UK now but it's usually once-a-day six day service. On Lewis the service is superb and even the Amazon 'free' service usually arrives as quickly as first class mail. The worst thing that a supplier can do is send 'guaranteed' next day delivery. That always takes longer. A wonderful irony.
DeleteMy Mum says that when she was young, mail was delivered twice a day (only once on Saturdays, I think). I am used to daily delivery, except for Mondays - I hardly ever find anything in my mailbox on Mondays, but I have no idea why that is so. The German Post have increased postage for standard letters last month, from 0,55 Euros to 0,58 Euros. And then they ran out of 0,03 Euros stamps...!! It was all rather ridiculous, and nobody understands why they didn't simply go from 55 to 60 Cents. Those 2 Cents more would certainly not have stopped people from sending a letter.
ReplyDeleteI've no idea what UK postage rates are at the moment but in NZ they recently went up from 60 cents to 70 cents for a standard letter (double those figures for FastPost).
DeleteI'd actually assume that, as there seems to be no slowing down in the amount of internet shopping people do, that there will actually be an increase in the total number of items that need delivering. Of course not all those items will be suitable for delivery by the postal service, but I would have thought that rather than cutting the number of delivery days they would have tried to improve their operations to reduce costs and to attract more of this type of business. The more difficult the post office make it for small items to be delivered quickly the less people will use the service (we live in a world of instant gratification where most people won't thinks sooner rather than later, hence most online shopping offering next day delivery services) which will make it even less profitable which will in turn lead to an increase in costs which will make people use it less and round and round we go!
ReplyDeleteIn summary reducing the number of delivery days is likely to hurt their profitability not help it.
I had given some thought to the question of internet shopping but it seems that, on the whole, whatever affect it is having is nowhere near enough to off-set the general decline. People like Amazon will have negotiated such huge discounts that their business is probably not very profitable for the couriers anyway. The remote postcodes are not served by many of the couriers even for Amazon. Where they are required by Amazon to send to the remote postcodes they seem usually to just pass it on to the Royal Mail or Parcelforce (I've had tracked items that have gone that route). Presumably they just take the hit and RM and Parcelforce are obliged to take the parcels and provide a national (usually same-price) service.
DeleteIf those two institutions do fail then the service to remote communities will fail also or become prohibitively expensive. Many businesses already refuse to send to the remote areas regardless.
On the subject of mail services generally my research shows that in New Zealand during the last 10 years mail volumes have dropped considerably, with 265 million fewer items being posted each year compared to 2002. Within five years, mail volumes are forecast to be nearly half what they were in 2002.
So far as I can see from all the articles I've read postal services all over the world are suffering from declining mail volumes and having to adapt and New Zealand Post is no different.
The cutting of the service from six to three days in NZ will allow the post deliverers to be cut in half because one person will be able to do two completely different rounds on alternate days.
Once a week delivery would be fine for me. I get very little snail mail. I lived in a place where several times a year we wee without mail for 6 weeks. I didn't have any urgent bills at that time.
ReplyDeleteI get relatively little mail in New Zealand so I suspect that it will make little difference to me but in many of NZ's very scattered (there are 4.5 m people in an area the size of the UK and most of them live in the cities and towns) communities there is total reliance on the post for many of the essentials of modern life often including food. Many rural areas have no access to affordable internet. Even just outside one of the main centres I have no mainstream terrestrial broadband - it is supplied by a private person who has installed microwave masts. I don't get any bills by post: they are all online.
DeleteI too pay all my bills online. But I still receive lots of mail from various charities. I wonder why our US postal service doesn't cut the number of daily deliveries instead of raising the cost of postage. I was surprised by such a quick delivery on my orange marmalade from Smuckers. I ordered online on Friday and Fedex delivered it the next day! I get my marmalade thru the mail because local groceries no longer sell the Spreadable Fruit that I like, no added sugar. I was amazed and delighted.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds, Norma, as though Fedex give you a very good service. I've tried using them several times in Scotland but their charges from the Islands have been very high reflecting the costs of the outlying areas. One advantage of what used to be the state national mail and parcel services are that they charge a standard rate.
DeleteLooks like the US Postal Service is dropping Saturday deliveries of letters, although they are specifically continuing with parcels due to the surge of items coming from Amazon eBay etc. Maybe this is the best compromise
ReplyDeleteCould well be Mark. There's little doubt that things are going to change one way and another. After all when I was a child we had two deliveries every day except Saturday (and, of course, none on Sunday).
Delete