Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Royal Mail shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Royal Mail offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Royal Mail at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Royal Mail? Wrong! If the Royal Mail is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Royal Mail then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Royal Mail? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Royal Mail and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Royal Mail wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Royal Mail then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Royal Mail site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Royal Mail, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Royal Mail, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

{{Infobox Company| company_name = Royal Mail Group Ltd| company_logo = || company_type = Limited| location_country = [United Kingdom| products =| services =| revenue =| operating_income =| net_income =| num_employees =| parent =| divisions =| subsid = [Post Office Limited of the [United Kingdom. Historically, the General Post Office was a government department, which included — and still does — the Royal Mail delivery business; but it became The Post Office, a state-owned corporation, in 1969 and then a Public Limited Company wholly owned by HM Government in 2000. The name initially registered with Companies House was Consignia plc.

This new name was aimed at ending the confusion that had existed between the terms The Post Office (the whole organisation) and Post Offices (the customer accessible counters). Another reason was to have a unique name for the international market. This new name was unpopular with employees, the unions and the general public; and Consignia plc became Royal Mail Group plc in 2002.

Unlike other former state monopolies such as The Stationery Office, British Gas plc and British Telecom, Royal Mail was not privatisation in the 1980s and 1990s, but remains a public limited company wholly owned by the Politics of the United Kingdom. This was largely due to the successful campaigning of the Communication Workers Union on behalf of its postal members.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail is Post Office Limited, which operates the national network of post offices. As the activities of Royal Mail have been reduced, so the network of post offices has contracted.

Royal Mail remains responsible for the universal mail collection and delivery service in the UK. Letters are deposited in a pillar box or wall box, taken to a post office, or (by arrangement) collected in bulk from businesses. Deliveries are made at least once every day (except Sundays and Bank Holidays) at uniform charges for all destinations within the UK.

According to its annual report for the year ended 26 March 2006, Royal Mail delivers 84 million items every working day and has a network of 14,376 post offices. Revenue for the year was £9.056 billion, and profits before tax were £312 million.

History See also: General Post Office (United Kingdom). The Royal Mail traces its history back to 1516, when Henry VIII of England established a "Master of the Posts". The Royal Mail service was first made available to the public by Charles I of England on July 31 1635, with postage being paid by the recipient, and the General Post Office (United Kingdom) (GPO) was officially established by Charles II of England in 1660. hexagonal red post box outside King's College, Cambridge. Traditionally UK post boxes carry the Latin initials of the reigning monarch at the time of their installation: in this case VR for Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Between 1719 and 1763, Ralph Allen, Postmaster at Bath, Somerset, signed a series of contracts with the post office to develop and expand Britain's postal network. He organised mail coaches which were provided by both Wilson & Company of London and Williams & Company of Bath. The early Mail coach were similar to ordinary family coaches but with Post Office livery. http://www.bathpostalmuseum.org/hop5.html

, in St Aldate's. Uniform penny postage In 1840 the mail underwent substantial reforms and the Uniform Penny Post was introduced. A single rate for delivery anywhere in the UK was paid by the sender. To certify that postage had been paid on a letter, the sender would affix the first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black.

As the first country to issue stamps, British stamps are the only stamps that Postage stamp design

It has been asserted that is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down., however, the newspaper that made this claim provides no source for this assertion, and none of the various Treason Acts make any mention of postage stamps.

. It is marked ER VII for Edvardvs Rex, the seventh (Edward VII of the United Kingdom).

Pillar boxes 1960 to present In 1969 the GPO was changed from a government department to a state-owned company, and the position of United Kingdom Postmaster General was abolished.

In 2000, The Post Office renamed itself "'Consignia'". However, the change proved to be highly unpopular with both the public and even the organisation's own employees, with the Communication Workers Union (UK) boycotting the name. In 2002, the organisation adopted the name "Royal Mail Group plc" with the following operating divisions:

Contrary to urban myth, Royal Mail does not own the trademark on the colour red, but a specific shade of the colour red: "Royal Mail, the Royal Mail Cruciform, the colour red and SmartStamp are all registered trademarks of Royal Mail Group plc.".

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump2?catId=400138&mediaId=600023

In 2001 the government set up a postal regulator, Postcomm, and offered licences to private companies to deliver mail. In 2001, the Consumer Council for Postal Services, more commonly known as Postwatch, was created for consumers to express any concerns they may have with the postal service in the UK.

From January 1, 2006, the Royal Mail lost its 350-year monopoly and the UK postal market became fully open to competition.

Timeline

Non-postal services Royal Mail introduced telegraph services in 1870 and telephone services in 1912. It remained responsible for the UK's telephone network until British Telecommunications was demerged by the British Telecommunications Act 1981. BT was later privatised.

The National Giro Bank was introduced in 1968, and sold to Alliance & Leicester in 1990.

Historically, many government benefits and state retirement pensions were paid in cash through the post office network. However, in recent years, an increasing proportion of benefit and pension payments have been made directly by bank transfer, leading to a loss of revenue for Post Office branches and many closures.

Public interest The Royal Mail is regulated by Postcomm, while consumer interests are represented by Postwatch. The relationship between the two has not always been good and in 2005 Postwatch took Postcomm to Judicial Review over its decision regarding rebates to late-paying customers.

The Government department responsible for the Royal Mail is the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, however the public financial interest is managed by the Shareholder executive

Although now a private company, the Royal Mail enjoys special protection under Government legislation which severely limits consumer rights. Under the Postal Services Act 2000, the Royal Mail is under no contractual obligation to deliver most mail, including Royal Mail Special Delivery items. In addition, no court action can be taken against the Royal Mail more than 12 months after an item is posted.

Royal Mail has, in some quarters, a poor reputation for losing mail despite more than 99.6% of mail arriving safely. According to Home Office figures from 2002 up to a million letters a week were lost or delivered to the wrong address Postwatch, "Royal Mail's Lost Mail", press release, 12 August 2002 (PDF) and one in five of these have been stolen, even letters or parcels sent via Recorded Delivery. However, most of these thefts are due to external crime rather than theft by staff.

The Chief Executive of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier has been quoted on various occasions as saying that "every single letter is important."

Industrial Relations Royal Mail has been at the centre of a number of industrial disputes during its history - notably the national wildcat strikes in 2003 and a seven-week strike in 1971 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/8/newsid_2516000/2516343.stm. More recently, workers at Royal Mail set up the discussion forum royalmailchat "for all employees and customers of Royal Mail" which has been central to the summer 2007 dispute over pay and conditions. By Autumn 2007 these disputes began to escalate into industrial actionhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/post/story/0,,2186926,00.htmlmiddayCrozier hits out at striking postal workers The Guardian [October 9, [2007 .

In mid October a resolution to the dispute appears to be on the horizon.

Fleet vanIn addition to running a large number of road vehicles, Royal Mail uses Mail Trains, a Ship and an aircraft, with an air hub at East Midlands Airport.

The following aircraft are included in the dedicated fleet:

The RMS St. Helena is a cargo and passenger ship that serves the British overseas territory of Saint Helena. It sails between Cape Town and Saint Helena, occasionally visiting the dependencies of Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha. It also visits the Isle of Portland, England twice per year. It is one of the last remaining ocean-going ships to carry the designation Royal Mail Ship.

Business services The Royal Mail runs, alongside its stamped mail services, another sector of post called business mail. The large majority of Royal Mail's business mail service is for PPI or franked mail, where the sender prints their own 'stamp'. For PPI mail this involves either a simple rubber stamp and an ink pad, or a printed label. For franked mail, a dedicated franking machine is used.

See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3681547.stm

References



External links



{{Infobox Company| company_name = Royal Mail Group Ltd| company_logo = || company_type = Limited| location_country = [United Kingdom| products =| services =| revenue =| operating_income =| net_income =| num_employees =| parent =| divisions =| subsid = [Post Office Limited of the [United Kingdom. Historically, the General Post Office was a government department, which included — and still does — the Royal Mail delivery business; but it became The Post Office, a state-owned corporation, in 1969 and then a Public Limited Company wholly owned by HM Government in 2000. The name initially registered with Companies House was Consignia plc.

This new name was aimed at ending the confusion that had existed between the terms The Post Office (the whole organisation) and Post Offices (the customer accessible counters). Another reason was to have a unique name for the international market. This new name was unpopular with employees, the unions and the general public; and Consignia plc became Royal Mail Group plc in 2002.

Unlike other former state monopolies such as The Stationery Office, British Gas plc and British Telecom, Royal Mail was not privatisation in the 1980s and 1990s, but remains a public limited company wholly owned by the Politics of the United Kingdom. This was largely due to the successful campaigning of the Communication Workers Union on behalf of its postal members.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail is Post Office Limited, which operates the national network of post offices. As the activities of Royal Mail have been reduced, so the network of post offices has contracted.

Royal Mail remains responsible for the universal mail collection and delivery service in the UK. Letters are deposited in a pillar box or wall box, taken to a post office, or (by arrangement) collected in bulk from businesses. Deliveries are made at least once every day (except Sundays and Bank Holidays) at uniform charges for all destinations within the UK.

According to its annual report for the year ended 26 March 2006, Royal Mail delivers 84 million items every working day and has a network of 14,376 post offices. Revenue for the year was £9.056 billion, and profits before tax were £312 million.

History See also: General Post Office (United Kingdom). The Royal Mail traces its history back to 1516, when Henry VIII of England established a "Master of the Posts". The Royal Mail service was first made available to the public by Charles I of England on July 31 1635, with postage being paid by the recipient, and the General Post Office (United Kingdom) (GPO) was officially established by Charles II of England in 1660. hexagonal red post box outside King's College, Cambridge. Traditionally UK post boxes carry the Latin initials of the reigning monarch at the time of their installation: in this case VR for Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Between 1719 and 1763, Ralph Allen, Postmaster at Bath, Somerset, signed a series of contracts with the post office to develop and expand Britain's postal network. He organised mail coaches which were provided by both Wilson & Company of London and Williams & Company of Bath. The early Mail coach were similar to ordinary family coaches but with Post Office livery. http://www.bathpostalmuseum.org/hop5.html

, in St Aldate's. Uniform penny postage In 1840 the mail underwent substantial reforms and the Uniform Penny Post was introduced. A single rate for delivery anywhere in the UK was paid by the sender. To certify that postage had been paid on a letter, the sender would affix the first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black.

As the first country to issue stamps, British stamps are the only stamps that Postage stamp design

It has been asserted that is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down., however, the newspaper that made this claim provides no source for this assertion, and none of the various Treason Acts make any mention of postage stamps.

. It is marked ER VII for Edvardvs Rex, the seventh (Edward VII of the United Kingdom).

Pillar boxes 1960 to present In 1969 the GPO was changed from a government department to a state-owned company, and the position of United Kingdom Postmaster General was abolished.

In 2000, The Post Office renamed itself "'Consignia'". However, the change proved to be highly unpopular with both the public and even the organisation's own employees, with the Communication Workers Union (UK) boycotting the name. In 2002, the organisation adopted the name "Royal Mail Group plc" with the following operating divisions:

Contrary to urban myth, Royal Mail does not own the trademark on the colour red, but a specific shade of the colour red: "Royal Mail, the Royal Mail Cruciform, the colour red and SmartStamp are all registered trademarks of Royal Mail Group plc.".

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump2?catId=400138&mediaId=600023

In 2001 the government set up a postal regulator, Postcomm, and offered licences to private companies to deliver mail. In 2001, the Consumer Council for Postal Services, more commonly known as Postwatch, was created for consumers to express any concerns they may have with the postal service in the UK.

From January 1, 2006, the Royal Mail lost its 350-year monopoly and the UK postal market became fully open to competition.

Timeline

Non-postal services Royal Mail introduced telegraph services in 1870 and telephone services in 1912. It remained responsible for the UK's telephone network until British Telecommunications was demerged by the British Telecommunications Act 1981. BT was later privatised.

The National Giro Bank was introduced in 1968, and sold to Alliance & Leicester in 1990.

Historically, many government benefits and state retirement pensions were paid in cash through the post office network. However, in recent years, an increasing proportion of benefit and pension payments have been made directly by bank transfer, leading to a loss of revenue for Post Office branches and many closures.

Public interest The Royal Mail is regulated by Postcomm, while consumer interests are represented by Postwatch. The relationship between the two has not always been good and in 2005 Postwatch took Postcomm to Judicial Review over its decision regarding rebates to late-paying customers.

The Government department responsible for the Royal Mail is the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, however the public financial interest is managed by the Shareholder executive

Although now a private company, the Royal Mail enjoys special protection under Government legislation which severely limits consumer rights. Under the Postal Services Act 2000, the Royal Mail is under no contractual obligation to deliver most mail, including Royal Mail Special Delivery items. In addition, no court action can be taken against the Royal Mail more than 12 months after an item is posted.

Royal Mail has, in some quarters, a poor reputation for losing mail despite more than 99.6% of mail arriving safely. According to Home Office figures from 2002 up to a million letters a week were lost or delivered to the wrong address Postwatch, "Royal Mail's Lost Mail", press release, 12 August 2002 (PDF) and one in five of these have been stolen, even letters or parcels sent via Recorded Delivery. However, most of these thefts are due to external crime rather than theft by staff.

The Chief Executive of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier has been quoted on various occasions as saying that "every single letter is important."

Industrial Relations Royal Mail has been at the centre of a number of industrial disputes during its history - notably the national wildcat strikes in 2003 and a seven-week strike in 1971 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/8/newsid_2516000/2516343.stm. More recently, workers at Royal Mail set up the discussion forum royalmailchat "for all employees and customers of Royal Mail" which has been central to the summer 2007 dispute over pay and conditions. By Autumn 2007 these disputes began to escalate into industrial actionhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/post/story/0,,2186926,00.htmlmiddayCrozier hits out at striking postal workers The Guardian [October 9, [2007 .

In mid October a resolution to the dispute appears to be on the horizon.

Fleet vanIn addition to running a large number of road vehicles, Royal Mail uses Mail Trains, a Ship and an aircraft, with an air hub at East Midlands Airport.

The following aircraft are included in the dedicated fleet:

The RMS St. Helena is a cargo and passenger ship that serves the British overseas territory of Saint Helena. It sails between Cape Town and Saint Helena, occasionally visiting the dependencies of Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha. It also visits the Isle of Portland, England twice per year. It is one of the last remaining ocean-going ships to carry the designation Royal Mail Ship.

Business services The Royal Mail runs, alongside its stamped mail services, another sector of post called business mail. The large majority of Royal Mail's business mail service is for PPI or franked mail, where the sender prints their own 'stamp'. For PPI mail this involves either a simple rubber stamp and an ink pad, or a printed label. For franked mail, a dedicated franking machine is used.

See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3681547.stm

References



External links





Royal Mail Website
Royal Mail’s information and services portal including products and services from Royal Mail, United Kingdom mail services. Track your mail online, search for postcodes and addresses and find out about UK and International mailing services.

Welcome to Royal Mail
Royal Mail s information and services portal including products and services from Royal Mail, United Kingdom mail services. Track your mail online, search for postcodes and ... See ...

Royal Mail Customer Service – Offering help and advice
Got a question about a mail delivery, need to download P58 claim forms, or contact us? Royal Mail’s customer services has all the answers. ... Customer Service. Got a question ...

Royal Mail Track and Trace
With Royal Mail you can track online the progress of items sent using selected Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide services. Quick and easy to use, simply add your reference ...

rmgweb @ rmgwbp05
rmgweb @ rmgwbp05

Welcome to Royal Mail
Royal Mail’s information and services portal including products and services from Royal Mail, United Kingdom mail services. Track your mail online, search for postcodes and ...

Royal Mail’s online Postcode finder
With Royal Mail’s Postcodes online you can find any postcode or address within the UK from our database of 27 million addresses. ... To find the postcode for any UK address ...

Royal Mail – Mailing products and services for you at home
Guidance on a range of Royal Mail services – from wrapping and packaging .to special occasions, moving home and paying bills online. ... There are numerous Postbus routes ...

Royal Mail - E*Pro [Login]
Welcome to E*Pro from Royal Mail. E*Pro allows you to complete mailing dockets online, track invoices and much more. Help is available at ...

Welcome to Royal Mail Group
Royal Mail Group - Royal Mail, Post Office, Parcelforce Worldwide ... Quick links. Work for Royal Mail Group Look at our jobs section ; Find out about being a supplier

 

Royal Mail



 
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