John Lewis becomes latest to desert Royal Mail
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John Lewis has joined a growing number of retailers deserting Royal Mail because of the planned national postal strike.
The retailer says it wants to avoid any disruption to online deliveries in the run-up to Christmas.
“We have ensured that postal strikes don’t affect our customers by switching the business to other carriers. We work with a number of different carriers for contingency to provide an uninterrupted service,” the retailer says.
Royal Mail employees voted in favour of industrial action last week. The Communication Workers Union will have to give seven days notice of any strike action.
The move by John Lewis follows reports that Amazon, eBay and Argos are all discussing moving business away from Royal Mail.
Last week, a survey from the British Chambers of Commerce found three-quarters of the 250 businesses it polled are considering using an alternative delivery service.
The British Retail Consortium today (13 October) warned that the recent upturn in online and mail-order sales of non-food goods could be reversed by the planned strikes.
Sharon Hardiman, head of non-store retailing at the BRC, says: “Online’s slice of overall Christmas spending hinges heavily on customers being sure retailers can get the goods to them. Online shopping is a big source of growth for Royal Mail. We all need common sense to prevail quickly.”
Readers' comments (8)
Derek Fairhurst | Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:03 am
We are specialist consultants working in the postal market on behalf of a large number of large volume mail users. Our historic trackers show that mail volumes decreased dramatically after the last national strike two years ago - and that mail volumes have never returned to previous levels. This time our clients - including a number of major retailers - are actively planning to tactically circumnavigate Royal Mail in the immediate future and to permanently decrease their use of mail media in the longer term.
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Steve Wallis | Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:08 pm
The Union's and staff are clearly not thinking things through and must be arrogant about their position. Do they not realise that these strikes will result in more of them losing their jobs. There will be less demand for Royal Mail service, so fewer worker required. Ridiculous.
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David Buchanan | Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:32 pm
Long gone are the days when there was little option but to use Royal Mail for a cost effective delivery. And with businesses increasingly reliant on web based sales we cannot be held to ransom by Royal Mail as it impacts on people's livelihoods. As a result we all have to look to alternatives. To be fair to the union it seems there has been a beligerent and dismissive attitude from the senior managment team too. Difficult to see who wins from this situation
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Anonymous | Tue, 13 Oct 2009 7:19 pm
I would challenge anyone to show me a Royal Mail Manager at any level that wants to see Industrial Action.
The Royal Mail must increase its operational efficiency and effectiveness through modernisation programmes that offer a fair days pay for a fair days work.
Light operational duties should not be a perk of seniority/longevity within union membership and mail delivery workloads will need continual review to ensure a fair balance given the changing profile of the traffic that Royal Mail carries both now and into the future.
The Union may never admit to recognising the futility of resisting the inevitable commercial change that Royal Mail is facing, but its members will certainly feel the pain financially during both their work and retirement lives if they do not put their differences and prejudices aside and work with Royal Mail leadership to keep and grow our customers, increase our competitiveness and safeguard jobs and pensions for all current and previous employees!
Either we all win or we all lose!...the union membership must make their individual choices and we will all suffer the consequences!...I remain ever hopefull
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Anonymous | Fri, 16 Oct 2009 4:34 pm
I think everyone is worried sick here,in reference to the postal strikes looming.
I think the govt should step in NOW and resolve te current issue.Once this issue is settled business will be back to normal.
And all the companies who have decided to leave the Royal mail will be reassured to
come back.
Because the Royal mail offers the cheapest services in comparison to its competitors.
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Anonymous | Sun, 18 Oct 2009 8:23 pm
Does anyone know the real figures for volumes delivered by Royal Mail over the past 10 years. Given that our local postman are using larger and larger hand-propelled trolleys to deliver and that the amount of mail coming through my door increases every year, I am doubtful about the claims that volumes are decreasing. I think this is being used as an excuse by Royal Mail to support shabby treatment of its employees. So, to repeat the question, how can one found out what volumes Royal Mail has delivered in previous years compared to now. How is this measured. By random sampling, by weight, by number of bags used per week? It would be interesting to findout. - PEM
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Anonymous | Mon, 19 Oct 2009 1:03 pm
i have already been emailed by an online ecommerce site who proactively tell me they are not using the Royal Mail in the run up to Xmas. When your customers are telling their customers that they are not using you, you are in deep trouble. I imagine that these same ecommerce sites would willingly pay extra to use Fedex/UPS/etc if means reliability of delivery, without which they are doomed. Even if a strike is averted the undermining of confidence in RM as a supplier will have a long term effect, and of course if the union deems brinkmanship to be a good strategy you can bet they will try it again.
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Anonymous | Mon, 19 Oct 2009 5:01 pm
In the current economic climate I remain amazed that the Union (& management team) at Royal Mail feel this is an appropriate time & course of action to be even considering let alone taking and braodcasting as loudly as it possibly can. To boot it's poor that Royal Mail's management feel unable to avoid this because the ultimate cost will be borne by the Royal Mail as a business and all it's employees. For goodness sake get the ACAS mediation underway and stop making a spectacle of yourselves. How many consumers let alone businesses that use the Royal Mail are now mentally & actively blacklisting Royal Mail- lots and this person is one of them. All the Royal Mail is achieving as a collective is promoting the message that they are a company and brand not to be trusted to deliver at all let alone on time.
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