Suppliers of incentive products such as vouchers and prizes could face extra costs under Royal Mail plans to change the rules on special delivery.
It proposes to limit what can be sent through its Special Delivery Next Day service, excluding valuable items such as cash, and any other items worth more than £500.
Instead, it would like these to be handled by a separate Special Delivery High Value service, which would be more expensive. This would involve “enhanced security features”, such as special security vans delivering to people's homes.
The costs of delivery of a 100g item would rise from between £4.10 and £5.60 to between £8.90 and £20 - which has been criticized by consumer watchdog Postwatch.
Royal Mail has confirmed that the rules on cash would cover vouchers because they are classed as items that are “readily convertible into cash”.
It said the change was necessary to make sure postal workers were safer while delivering mail after a spate of robberies.
The plans are currently at the consultation stage through regulator Postcomm. It is gathering views from trade bodies in the incentives industry such as the VA, which represents suppliers of vouchers and stored-value cards.
To download the consultation document, click here: http://www.psc.gov.uk/policy-and-consultations/consultations.html
Reproduced with permission from http://www.incentivetoday.com/
