Royal Mail ‘plans to end Saturday letter deliveries’ in fight to keep up with Amazon

Royal Mail ‘plans to end Saturday letter deliveries and end signed-for’ deliveries in a fight to keep up with Amazon.

The Royal Mail is undergoing a major shakeup and according to reports deliveries of letters on Saturdays are under threat along with signed for parcels. The Royal Mail hope to be able to compete with the likes of Amazon, and new plans are being considered by bosses at the Royal Mail.

New bosses are carrying out a service review of the Royal Mail’s “whole product suite and offering” according to The Telegraph. Recently the demand for letters has decreased but delivery companies such as FedEx and Amazon are doing well.

A former executive at Ocado and Apple, Simon Thompson, launched the review of the Royal Mail. The review is set to take around six months and aims to cut costs. The review will carefully investigate customers’ needs, including if they still want special deliveries, signed for deliveries and other services such as tracked deliveries which are expensive.

Other delivery companies seem to thrive on customers being satisfied that their parcels are simply handed over to a neighbour, or placed in a safe space. Once the review is complete a final decision is expected sometime next year.

The possible changes would not be able to go ahead though without government approval and a law change though, as the Royal Mail currently has to provide a universal service. It is expected that any major changes would be opposed by the CWU, which is a trade union.

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