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Royal Mail is having to make the choice between cancelling Saturday deliveries or raising the price of first-class stamps to more than £1.
The company said on Monday, December 19 that the cost of delivering the mail has increased considerably and that they cannot continue with Saturday services at the current price of stamps.
Stamp prices rose in March 2022 to 95p for a first-class stamp and 68p for a second-class stamp, but since then energy and fuel prices had rocketed. With the company currently facing union action, costs are likely to rise even further.
It is unlikely that Royal Mail will be able to reduce its staffing in an effort to cut costs and therefore keep the cost of stamps down, with one of the existing issues between the management and the unions is productivity.
But that is not the only problem with the Royal Mail boss Keith Williams telling the Sun: “You’re delivering the same number of letters over six days when you could be doing it over five.
“So that is forcing up stamp prices.”
Despite the obvious cost pressures and the falling volumes of letters, Business Secretary Grant Shapps told a select committee last week that he would not approve any plans to reduce the number of delivery days.
But as the Royal Mail mulls cancellation of Saturday deliveries, it may be faced with little choice as pushing the cost of mail up further may price the company out of an increasingly competitive market.
Perhaps some creativity will be needed to find a new model that will allow the company to continue providing a Saturday service, even if on a more limited scale.
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