West Midlands businesses look for alternatives to Royal Mail
Businesses in the West Midlands have turned their backs on the Royal Mail as the postal strikes begin this week.
It has been predicted the strikes would mean two million letters and parcels will go undelivered, which would cause chaos for deliveries and billing.
And many local businesses said they were fed-up with an inadequate service – and added they would be looking elsewhere in the future.
Warwickshire entrepreneur Dean Winsbury switched his service to commercial delivery firm DHL. He said wildcat strikes going on in parts of the country had already affected business at a crucial time of the year, and the firm could not afford any more losses.
Mr Winsbury, who co-owns both a mountaineering equipment business and a fancy dress costume supply firm, said the service at Royal Mail had also been poor, adding: “We have signed a contract with DHL to use their at home service. It’s just not tenable for us not to have a delivery service. Halloween is a busy time of year for us, and over the past few weeks with the wildcat strikes we have had very bad services.
"Luckily there were no problems for us changing over because we had already started talking to DHL when this started. We got hit hard by the strikes last year and we had a fairly good idea something like this would be happening again.”
He said he had been told by DHL that enquiries had been flooding in from former Royal Mail customers.
When contacted, DHL said it was not commenting on the Royal Mail strikes.
Businesses also complained about the service from the Royal Mail, even before the strikes were announced.
Mike Cherry, a former Federation of Small Businesses official and owner of Staffordshire manufacturer Just Wood, said: “We still use it for getting letters and brochures but the bulk of our parcel stuff we moved away from them now. The problem we have with a mail shot is the volumes aren’t large enough for alternative suppliers to take them on.
"The decision to leave Royal Mail was made four or five years ago – we needed the traceability and at that time they weren’t able to give us what we wanted to give to our customers.”
Wildcat strikes have taken place in recent days but have largely missed out on Birmingham and the West Midlands. But it is feared full strikes would have a huge impact on the local economy.
