SMEs ‘still reliant on Royal Mail’

Small businesses still rely heavily on Royal Mail and are set to lose out in the backlog created by today’s nationwide postal strike, according to a recent survey.

And the strike action – called in protest at modernisation plans that workers fear could affect jobs – is set to hit small firms hard.

In research carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), 70% of small firms said that they rely on Royal Mail for at least half of their business post.

The same proportion of companies said they would lose money, while four out of 10 said they would lose trade and their reputation would suffer on account of the industrial action.

However, nearly half of small businesses say that alternative couriers are not right for their needs.

An FSB spokesperson told More Than Business News that small firms rely on the Royal Mail service for their essential everyday correspondence like invoices.

“Other couriers tend to be expensive and want things in bulk,” he added.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has now stepped into the disagreement between the Communication Workers Union and Royal Mail, which is also set to disrupt the postal service tomorrow.

He has called on the groups to “get round the table”, warning that the strike could become “self-defeating” if the effect is that fewer people use the Royal Mail.

While Royal Mail still handles around 75 million items each day, it claims that modernisation is needed to offset a 10% year-on-year decline in its core business.

Operations director Paul Tolhurst said that although staff at sorting centres are not working today, post that was sent yesterday and had already been sorted would be delivered today.

Meanwhile, mail that is collected today will be sorted tomorrow, due to the staggered nature of strikes across different Royal Mail job roles.

“Clearly backlogs will build up,” Tolhurst told BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme.

“But we’re talking days rather than weeks. We are trying to focus on keeping mail moving.”

There is still the possibility that Royal Mail and the CWU will sit around a table with mediation service ACAS, but according to advice from smallbusiness.co.uk, small firms can protect themselves from further strike action by planning ahead. The website suggests that small firms:

1) Speak to customers, keeping them updated about when they can expect their post.

2) Take outgoing mail to a post office instead of leaving it in a post box to improve the chance of it being collected.

3) Check with the post office to see if urgent post can be sent special delivery.

4) Consider making payments online or in person at banks, building societies or post offices, in order to avoid being penalised for late payments.

IMAGE Rui Vieira/PA Wire

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