Royal Mail Share Discussion Threads

[wipo1] 25/1/2017 11:53

Very good post exotic

[exotic] 23/1/2017 19:09

Hermes are great on price, but take several days and are extremely unreliable. If something goes missing their policy is not to tell you. And stuff goes missing far far more often than with RM. It's up to you to notice delivery hasn't taken place, or wait for your angry Customer message or eBay case. Communicating with Hermes and the Customer takes up so much time, it's really not worth the money you save by using them. The couriers are self-employed and its in their self interest to take the risk of leaving your parcel in an unsafe place to avoid having to come back later.

They use their own private vehicles. Do all their couriers secure their vehicle sufficiently while making a delivery, so the local gang doesn't raid the stash? Who knows, you will not get answers from Hermes when your Christmas deliveries go missing.

Hermes couriers do not have the relationship which still largely exists between Postman and Customers on his/her round. Does this increase the chance of your Customers making false claims for compensation when you use Hermes? In my experience it certainly does.

The only reason for using Hermes is if you can't get to the Post Office easily. Eg. if you work full-time, Hermes will collect from your porch or other safe place for a few pence more.

If you CAN get to the Post Office easily, then Royal Mail standard is much more reliable than Hermes fully tracked. However, for anything over 2KG Royal Mail pricing bands become very uncompetitive and that's when I switch to another courier.

So RM need to do two things:

1) Restructure prices for items over 2KG. Eg. For a pair of boots weighing 2KG, sent 1st Class it's £5.22. If it weighs 1 gram more, the price more than trebles to £15.85.
2) Open up the depots to accept business mail directly, instead of having to go via the Post Office. If you don't want to pay the extra wage bill, invest in automated lockers, like InPost. Accepting parcels 24/7 will open up the service to so many new customers. When looking for growth, 24/7 access is the single biggest low-hanging fruit.

[wipo1] 23/1/2017 12:03

Yes Hermes not very good, but I see they're getting a huge chunk of business in my neighbourhood. If I'm posting ebay goods j would still rather use Royal mail unless it's bulky stuff.I'm still watching not sure whether to invest, traded here before and always made money so I'm tempted.

[mbmiah] 23/1/2017 00:42

Hermes are quite poor - they lie about their delivery attempts Dpd are good though

[johnyo] 21/1/2017 12:15

Tend to agree regarding pension dispute, hopefully it gets sorted without industrial action. As that will lead to losing customers in a very competitive environment it's not easy getting them back.Big changes are needed though, middle management & administration must be cut.Parcelforce Royal Mail's parcel delivery company is unable to compete with MyHermes & DPD & has lost considerable business to both.Seems strange to have 2 split companies with manager overkill delivering parcels a merger has got to be a no brainier ?

[mbmiah] 20/1/2017 21:43

Once the pension issue is solved this will climb above 475 easy. The pension issue has to be solved, so easy decision to make here.

[freddie ferret] 20/1/2017 17:22

PE is to high IMHO

[mrthomas] 20/1/2017 13:39

This may be worth a buy if goes below 400 but depends if they can hold the dividend held the share before

[careful] 20/1/2017 10:15

Letters are obviously in decline.
But we are in an age where more items, packages and parcels,get delivered.
amazon are spending billions on the belief that we will want things delivered within a single day or even within an hour.
Their retail business model is are based upon the assumption that we are house bound and prepared to wait for the delivery of goods that we have not seen or felt.
Returns of unwanted goods will increase overheads and cause chaos.

I still think that long term there will be a place for RMG. It would take many billions of investment more than the current market value to set it up from scratch.

[montyhedge] 20/1/2017 08:51

Who snail mail anymore?

[careful] 19/1/2017 19:39

door- to- door delivery is a great asset.
over 20 millions homes every day.
parcels rising exponentially.
£9 bn turnover.

Someone with imagination could do something with RMG.
Maybe like Amazon it should sell as well as deliver.

£4.20bn cap is very modest.

[freddie ferret] 19/1/2017 19:21

I do not normally say these things but I can see this down a lot further. 200p or 300p?

[diku] 19/1/2017 18:25

Is this safe in the FTSE 100?...

[muffinhead] 19/1/2017 18:05

Royal Mail has been increasing mail charges way above inflation. If letters UKPIL is to have any future, the price of postage needs to reverse imo. It is simply a horrible option for consumer and business with current technological options. Spending millions on automation efficiencies while your market is disappearing seems daft to me. The market might actually upgrade RMG as a share if the letters market stopped shrinking and stabilised which might actually happen if the millions spent on automation was invested in the price of postage.

[exotic] 19/1/2017 14:17

Good point except that annual dividend income above £5K is taxed at 7.5%, or 32.5% for higher rate taxpayers.

Even those falling below the first threshold will have slightly increased spending power, but then there is tax on almost everything they buy.

So in one way or another, it all ends up with increased government funds for national infrastructure, the NHS, state pensions, etc.

Tax and redistribution by stealth.

[ignoble] 19/1/2017 11:22

Well put Yump
A very good point

[oiht] 19/1/2017 11:19

Added this morning.

[yump] 19/1/2017 10:56

I just wonder when anyone in government will mention the elephant in the room which is growing rapidly, especially when it comes to pensions, NI etc. etc.

We base a huge amount on employee contributions, while at the same time the number of employees used to produce increasing (or the same) company revenue and profits has been decreasing consistently over years, thanks to automation and computerisation.

The money from dividend distribution does not go towards infrastructure, the NHS or state pensions.

I do wonder if this situation is similar to the cause of the recession, in that none of the economists can see what's coming, probably because they don't care to look.

[careful] 19/1/2017 10:18

just topped up here at 421p.
pe about 10, yield aout 4.5%.

Netfix last night rose 10%.
forward pe over 200.
cash burn horrendous.

Amazon pe over 600.

crazy world out there.
must keep sane, todays statement was ok.

[diku] 19/1/2017 08:54

380p anybody in Feb?...

[death by donut] 18/1/2017 21:18

Good shout , last two 9 monthers been on a thursday by the look of it.

DbD

[oiht] 18/1/2017 19:17

Trading update tomorrow I believe.

[wipo1] 16/1/2017 14:06

I would be tempted at 400 to 420p