Metropol

tillyoshea wrote: Sun 01 Aug, 2021 11.19 According to the website, “TNT will become FedEx Express”, which is distressingly tautological.

That's to distinguish it from their other business units (none of which operate in the UK), such as FedEx Ground, FedEx Office and FedEx Logistics)

thegeek wrote: Sun 01 Aug, 2021 21.10That's to distinguish it from their other business units (none of which operate in the UK), such as FedEx Ground, FedEx Office and FedEx Logistics)

Perhaps we could take inspiration and rebrand Parceforce as Royal Mail Parcels and distinguish the letters service using the title Royal Mail Mail.

I posted a load of uninformed rubbish earlier, and when I tried to edit my post it went a bit wrong.

Anyway, after deciding to read bits of Royal Mail Group's annual report, they have big plans for parcels under the usual postal network, with new hubs for sorting, Sunday deliveries (I had one yesterday with Amazon stuff), and additional weekday deliveries for consumer parcels. They know letters are only going to decline further so want to become more courier-like.

Parcelforce seems like an unnecessary relic now. Turns out management tried to turn it into its own limited company and TUPE employees to that in 2019 (possibly to sell it). The union was having none of it. In fact, an update on industrial relations in December last year - settling a long running pay dispute - saw Royal Mail "commit to maintaining and investing in both the Parcelforce Worldwide brand and operational structure". That's despite the fact they showed Parcelforce as a £91m "impairment" in the 2019-20 accounts.

So - bringing this back on topic, apparently posties are getting new uniforms next year and the annual report says more stamps will be getting barcodes.

That's not a barcode. Looks more like a QR code.

Fandom (formerly Wikia) has a new logo.
https://community.fandom.com/wiki/The_Future_of_Fandom

Yes it is. It's a 2D barcode.

I am still excited to see the new great British railways logo. Which will apparently be a slightly modernised version compared to the old one.

Plus I wished they had just got back to calling it “British Rail” even thought it isn’t the same as it was back then.

I think it's great to see Royal Mail expanding into a courier like service, it's the only way they were ever going to be able to keep going with letters in decline.

Price wise though, last year I was quoted over £16 to send an old PlayStation console, yet a courier service through the Parcel2Go would pick it up from the door and deliver it by 11am the next day for £8, a deal which also included insurance, without the insurance it would have been £7. (It wasn't Hermes either, it was a company I hadn't heard of)

RM must be competitive in terms of prices if they are going to do well.

I think the Royal Mail will need to add more than just Post Offices to allow customers to send/collect parcels from. I had to send off my phone for repair using DPD, where they use the likes of Argos, Sainsbury's and Homebase and a load of independent convenience stores to do it from.

From what I've heard from people who have collected parcels from the local Post Office, it's not easy and customers have been informed they're at the PO ready for collection and then staff say no.

Incidentally when my local Co-Op had their recent refurbishment, they added a dedicated click and collect parcel room where an employee is dedicated to working in.

Sure everyone will appreciate this echo from the past, as seen in Newcastle:





History of that unit: Index > Argos > American Candy > Christmas tat

This documentary by Iceland is an absolute belter for supermarket history enthusiasts.

Loads of high quality archive material, thanks to Iceland's in-house archive collection. Very impressive and fascinating.

Anyone else noticed Next using a different logo on products & on some bags? Some parcel collection bags are branded as ‘Next GO’ in all caps sans serif font. Different to their current, but I can’t see anything about it online. They only updated their logo last year so would seem odd.