Universal service - bulk mail products
Postcomm has proposed removing all but two bulk mail products from Royal Mail’s universal service provision, from April 2006.
Identifying the products which remain as universal services provides customers with clarity and gives Royal Mail greater flexibility to compete in the bulk mail sector, since restrictions on most of its bulk mail products would be removed, paving the way for the company to vary its rates for those products, while continuing to provide them on a UK-wide basis.
Bulk mail services are large-scale distributions of letters and catalogues by businesses, and account for about half of Royal Mail’s total business volume.
In order to protect customers, two products will remain within the universal service:
- Mailsort 1400 (first and second class,
- which covers mail of all formats up to 2kg in weight and pre-sorted according to the locations of the 1,400 delivery offices.
- Cleanmail (first and second class)
- does not require users to have sorting machines and is the "entry level" bulk mail product most often used by smaller businesses.
Other bulk mail products for large mail users are: Mailsort 120, Mailsort 700, Walksort, Packetpost, Flatsort and Presstream.
If Royal Mail chose not to agree to amend its licence as Postcomm proposes, the situation could remain as it is currently, with all bulk mail products except Presstream treated as universal services. Any licence change would be likely to take effect from April 2006.
Related documents:
- 30 June 2005 - decision document
- The universal service for bulk mailers - a decision document (pdf, 254KB).
- 30 June 2005 - news release
- Postcomm removes most bulk mail products from universal service.
