RM's shameful secret Saturday stamp shenanigans!

amcluesent

The great stamp rip-off: Saturday first-class post now goes the same as second... but Royal Mail keeps it secret

The Royal Mail has made millions of pounds by charging for a firstclass delivery service that it has effectively scrapped – without telling customers.

Confidential documents leaked to The Mail on Sunday reveal that the postal service has stopped giving priority to first-class letters and packages posted on Saturdays.

Monday's 2nd class dispatch has also been scrapped.

FACT - Something to thinks about if you're trying to save P&P and keep good DSRs!

Oliver14

FACT _if you read the article properly and take the DMs spin with a pinch off salt. What is actually happening is second class mail is upgraded to first class on fridays and saturdays.

eeeeeee

its not upgraded oliver it stays in the 2nd class giant sacks and blue cage and is sorted later through the day/night ... than the 1st class ... tho this is dependant on the lorries arrival ( if theres an accident on the motorway and the lorry is delayed for example the 2nd class might get sorted in front of that lorry) thought this was common knowledge ... all 1st class and 2nd class has too be sorted from the main depots ... if theres anytime left then you sort the 3 rd class as well

ThinkingOfLinking

I send most of my stuff by second class and it still ends up arriving next day most of the time, regardless of what day of the week I send it.

macfly

What the article is saying is that most of the time it's a needless expense to post ordinary letters first class on a Saturday. In a "sensational" manner of course. It's hardly Watergate.
Logically, if the staff have processed all the first class mail in a few hours, they don't stop and deliberately leave second class for another day. However, if I had an important letter to post on a Saturday, I would still spend 10p in case that weekend was a heavy one.
I also use second class mail for ebay low value items. If everyone did it, there would be no first class any more. However, the price of second class would increase.

soolin

My 2nd class items went to the main office at around 12pm yesterday- if ti is as per usual weeks most will arrive with the buyers tomorrow morning.

martindow

This is the Daily Mail reporting - a paper best regarded as a fictional comic without the pictures. Is custardy or another RM employee able to say what really happens?

custardy

martindow wrote: »

This is the Daily Mail reporting - a paper best regarded as a fictional comic without the pictures. Is custardy or another RM employee able to say what really happens?

Mail centre procedures are constantly evolving.(though nowhere near the DOs IMO)
the simple fact is(talking from the mail feeds into Delivery offices) that little processing is done over the weekend or the 1st couple of days of the week.
so the MCs are adjusting their staffing to this pattern
So Monday you have little mail being processed
Tuesday it will be picking up and will be busy for Special Deliveries
then it builds for the week with masses of Downstream Access mail coming in
Saturday(supposedly the hortest day of the week in DO's) has become a day of hammering with al the DSA stuff coming down
it used to be Mailsort that was a mon-Fri product and helped with the shorter Saturday
Now DOs get slammed

zenseeker

Only the truely gullible use First Class anyway. I only ever consider using First Class as we get to the last couple of weeks before Christmas.

wileycat

custardy wrote: »

the simple fact is(talking from the mail feeds into Delivery offices) that little processing is done over the weekend or the 1st couple of days of the week.
so the MCs are adjusting their staffing to this pattern
So Monday you have little mail being processed
Tuesday it will be picking up and will be busy for Special Deliveries
then it builds for the week with masses of Downstream Access mail coming in
Saturday(supposedly the hortest day of the week in DO's) has become a day of hammering with al the DSA stuff coming down
it used to be Mailsort that was a mon-Fri product and helped with the shorter Saturday
Now DOs get slammed

Thats just the posting patterns working through, and of course its easier to clear a backlog over a weekend than through the week, so it feels lighter at the start of the week.
Like that friday feeling, posties get on saturday morning!

custardy

wileycat wrote: »

Thats just the posting patterns working through, and of course its easier to clear a backlog over a weekend than through the week, so it feels lighter at the start of the week.
Like that friday feeling, posties get on saturday morning!

theres no feel about it
it is lighter
you can easily see just by looking at a frame(where each duty is prepared)how busy/quiet that day is

though the RM manager platitude book has recently been updated with
"its not busy,its a challenge"